Origami-Inspired Vibration Isolation with Inherent Nonlinear Inerter

Origami-inspired structures have shown strong nonlinearity on their force-displacement response, which could be used for vibration isolation by appropriate selections of structural parameters. However, the influence of the structural weight on the dynamic performance is rarely considered and discussed during the modelling and analysis of such origami-based vibration control structures. In lightweight isolation applications, the structural weights should be considered as they can bring beneficial effects on the system capability. A recent study found that the structural weight within the origami-inspired vibration system can induce strong dynamic nonlinearity as a tunable inerter. In this paper, the origami-inspired quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) vibration isolators under different tunable inerter conditions are experimentally investigated to explore their isolation performances. Compared with the corresponding system that has no self-weight considered, the resonance response of the proposed QZS system can be suppressed and also the effective isolation frequency band of the QZS system can be improved towards to a lower frequency range.