ENOC-2008, Saint Petersburg, Russia, June, 30–July, 4 2008

FORCE TRANSMISSIBILITY OF A NONLINEAR

VIBRATION ISOLATOR WITH
HIGH-STATIC-LOW-DYNAMIC-STIFFNESS

A. Carrella M.J. Brennan

Department of Aerospace Engineering Institute of Sound and Vibration Research
University of Bristol, UK University of Southampton, UK
[email protected] [email protected]

T.P. Waters
Institute of Sound and Vibration Research
University of Southampton, UK
[email protected]

Abstract ing linear springs with positive stiffness in parallel with

A problem that affects many engineering applications mechanical elements of negative stiffness (Alabuzhev
is the need for vibration isolation to reduce the level et al., 1989; Carrella et al., 2007) or using magnets
of vibration transmitted from a source to a receiver. A as a source of negative stiffness (Carrella et al., 2008).
lower natural frequency would benefit the isolation per- When sets of elements with positive and negative stiff-
formance of a vibration isolator because it would pro- ness act in parallel it is possible to achieve High-Static-
vide a wider frequency isolation region. However, if Low-Dynamic-Stiffness (HSLDS). More specifically,
a linear mount is used, this approach is limited by the this type of systems can be optimally tuned so that at
static displacement that derives from a soft spring. One the static equilibrium position only the positive stiff-
possible solution is to employ nonlinear mounts with ness mechanism exerts a restoring force (and there-
high-static-low-dynamic-stiffness (HSLDS) whose dy- fore it has the same static displacement as a standard
namics can often be described by the Duffing equa- or equivalent linear system). However, for oscilla-
tion. Although the response of the Duffing oscillator tions about the static equilibrium position, the effect
to a harmonic force applied to the mass has been ex- of the negative stiffness components is to reduce the
tensively studied, simple analytical expressions for the dynamic stiffness which implies a lower natural fre-
transmissibility of these systems seems not to be avail- quency than the linear model and, as a consequence,
able yet. In this paper a simple expression for the max- a greater frequency range over which there is vibra-
imum transmissibility is proposed. Furthermore, the tion isolation (Rivin, 2001). Most generally, the load-
transmissibility of an HSLDS isolator is compared with deflection curve of a HSLDS mount can be described
that of an equivalent linear model to show the improved by a polynomial function of n-th degree. However, if it
performance. is possible to reduce the polynomial to a symmetric cu-
bic, a relatively easy analytical formulation can be ob-
tained. In most cases, this can be done with a good de-
1 Introduction gree of approximation and allows to write the equation
The use of passive isolators is ubiquitous in engineer- of motion in the form of the Duffing equation which has
ing systems (Hartog, 1985; Rivin, 2001). In the sim- been extensively studied (Nayfeh and Mook, 1995; Jor-
plest case when the isolator is linear, a low natural dan and Smith, 1999). In the literature analysis of the
frequency, which is desirable, can only be achieved Duffing oscillator is usually confined to the study of
by having a large static deflection, which is undesir- the system response to a harmonic force applied to the
able. This disadvantage can be overcome by employ- mass. Only few papers investigate the transmissibility
ing isolation mounts with a nonlinear characteristic. of this type of system and the reference work on the
For examples, Platus (Platus, 1999) and Plaut (Plaut subject is (Ravindra and Mallik, 1994). The analysis
et al., 2005) exploited the buckling of structures under presented therein does not offer analytical expressions
axial load in a specific configuration to achieve low dy- for the characterisation of the transmissibility. Peleg
namic stiffness without compromising on the static dis- (Peleg, 1979) has given a more analytical description
placement. Others have achieved the same by connect- of the transmissibility of a nonlinear system with cu-
bic restoring force but also lacks a final explicit expres-
sion. In this article, an analytical formulation of the Linear
Hardening

Response amplitude at
isolation performance of a nonlinear isolation mounts Softening

excitation frequency
in terms of the system transmissibility is proposed and
a simple, explicit formula for the peak transmissibility
of a vibration isolator with cubic nonlinearity is pro-
vided. Furthermore, a numerical comparison between
the transmissibilities of the HSLDS and its equivalent
linear mount shows the advantages offered by the non-
linear mount.
0
1 Ω
2 Response to a harmonic force Figure 2. Frequency response function of the Duffing oscillator de-
Fig. 1 is a schematic representation of a single-degree- scribed by Eqn.(3). The sign of the cubic coefficient defines a soft-
of-freedom system with an HSLDS mount. A mass m ening (-) or hardening (+) behaviour. When α = 0 the system
is suspended on a dashpot c and a nonlinear mount with becomes linear
HSLDS characteristic, kHSLDS . When an element with

equation of motion of the HSLDS model is

fe
mẍ + cẋ + k1 x + k3 x3 = Fe cos(ω t) (2)
m x It is helpful to nondimensionalise Eqn.(2), so that

x̂′′ + 2 ζ x̂′ + x̂ + α x̂3 = cos(Ω τ ) (3)

c
kHSLDS
where:
c k1 k3 x20
ζ= 2mωn ωn2 = m α= k1
ω
ft Ω= ωn τ = ωn t
ẍ ẋ
Figure 1. Single-degree-of-freedom system with an HSLDS mount x̂′′ = 2 x
ωn 0
x̂′ = ωn x 0 x̂ = x/x0
with viscous damping: a mass m is suspended on a dashpot c in
with the symbol ′ denoting differentiation with respect
parallel with a nonlinear spring with HSLDS kHSLDS . The excita-
to the nondimensional time τ and
tion force acting on the mass is fe = Fe cos ω t. ft is the force
transmitted to the base through the spring and the dashpot 
Fe 
x0 = (4)
k1 

k3 =0, ω=0
constant positive stiffness is connected in parallel with
a mechanism with nonlinear negative stiffness, e.g. the It is noteworthy that ωn is not the natural frequency
systems considered in (Carrella et al., 2007; Carrella et of the HSLDS system but is a characteristic frequency
al., 2008), the restoring force can be expressed approx- which is the natural frequency of the linearised HSLDS
imately as isolator, i.e. when the amplitude of oscillations is small
enough to make α x̂2 ≪ 1. Note also that α is a factor
related to the type and degree of nonlinearity. Besides,
fkHSLDS = k1 x + k3 x3 (1)
α also takes into account the magnitude of the applied
force because of its dependency on the displacement
where k1 and k3 are the coefficients of the linear and x0 . The role played by the sign of α is qualitatively
nonlinear terms of the cubic restoring force respec- shown in Fig. 2. When α is negative the FRF curve
tively, and the sign of k3 denotes the stiffness be- bends to the left, marking a softening behaviour. When
haviour, hardening (+) or softening (-). It is impor- α = 0 the system becomes linear and the FRF assumes
tant to recall that if the elements with negative stiff- its standard shape with a peak at Ω = 1 (when damping
ness (which confer the desired HSLDS characteristic) is small). Finally, as α is made positive, the plot leans
are removed then the isolator becomes a standard lin- over to the right because of its hardening characteristic.
ear model, i.e. k3 = 0, with constant stiffness, say,
kl > k1 . If the mass of the system shown in Fig. 1 It is possible to obtain an approximate analytical
is excited by a harmonic force fe = Fe cos(ω t) the solution to Eqn.(3) with different methods (Nayfeh
 s
and Mook, 1995). Amongst them, here the preferred 2
r
3α

method is the Harmonic Balance (HB) to a first order X̂max ≈ 1+ − 1 (7)
3α 4 ζ2
expansion, i.e. it is assumed that the response is har-
monic at the excitation frequency (Hamdan and Bur-
ton, 1993; Friswell and Penny, 1994; Worden, 1996) and the jump-down frequency at which this occurs is

r
x̂ = X̂ cos(Ω τ + ϕ) (5) 3 2
Ωd = α X̂max + (1 − 2 ζ 2 ) (8)
4

where X̂ is the amplitude and ϕ the phase of the re-

By√substituting Eqn.(7) into (8), and assuming that ζ ≪
sponse. The application of the HB leads to the fre-
1/ 2 (ζ ≪ 0.7) a simple expression for Ωd can be
quency equation that relates the amplitude and fre-
found, which is
quency of the response and is given by (Magnus, 1965)
s r
1 3α
Ωd ≈ √ 1+ 1+ (9)
4 ζ2
 
3 2
Ω21 2
= 1 + α X̂ − 2 ζ + 2
4
s (6a)
1

3
 From Eqn.(9) it can be seen that, when α is negative
− 2 2 2
1 − 4 ζ X̂ 1 − ζ + α X̂ 2
4 (softening system), for Ωd to be real the following cri-
X̂
teria has to hold

4 2
α = αmax ≤ ζ (10)
  3
3
Ω22 = 1 + α X̂ 2 − 2 ζ 2 +
4
Eqn.(10) expresses the fact that, when a softening sys-
s (6b)
tem with a given damping ratio has too large a nonlin-
 
1 3
+ 1 − 4 ζ 2 X̂ 2 1 − ζ 2 + α X̂ 2 ear coefficient, i.e. |α| > |α|max , the two curves Ω1
X̂ 4
and Ω2 never meet and the jump-down does not occur,
(Hamdan and Burton, 1993). As it will be shown in the
From equations (6a,b) it is possible to derive an ex- next section, Eqns.(7) and (9) will enable to charac-
pressions for the maximum amplitude of the response, terise with simple analytical expressions the transmis-
i.e. when the known phenomenon of the jump-down sibility of the nonlinear system.
takes place and for the frequency at which this occurs
(Magnus, 1965; Carrella, 2008), both depicted in Fig.3.
The maximum amplitude is 3 Transmissibility of the HSDLS isolator
The quantity that is often used to evaluate the per-
formance of an isolation mount is the absolute trans-
missibility which is non-dimensional and frequency-
X̂max D dependent. If the system is excited by a harmonic force
applied to the mass the absolute transmissibility is the
ratio between the magnitude of the transmitted force
to a rigid foundation and the magnitude of the excita-
X̂ tion force, in steady-state vibration and at a given ex-
citation frequency. With reference to Fig. 1, the har-
X̂u U monic excitation force (source) acting on the mass is
fe = Fe cos(ω t). The force transmitted to the base
(receiver) is ft = Ft cos(ω t + ϕt ). By definition the
0
0.8 Ω 1 Ωu 1.2 Ωd absolute transmissibility is

Ft
Figure 3. Plot of the frequency response of a hardening Duffing os- |Ta | = (11)
Fe
cillator: as the frequency is increased the amplitude increases follow-
ing the upper or resonant curve. At the frequency Ωd , marked with
the letter D, it suddenly drops to the lower or non-resonant branch. Expressing the equation of motion in nondimensional
Similarly, decreasing the frequency, the response follows the non- form as in Eqn.(3), the nondimensional transmitted
resonant branch until the frequency Ωu , marked with the letter U. A force – through the spring and the dashpot – is
further decrease in frequency causes the response to jump up to the
resonant branch.
fˆt = 2 ζ x̂′ + x̂ + α x̂3 (12)
where fˆt = (c x + k1 x + k3 x3 )/(k1 x0 ). Being inter- Recall that for a linear system the peak-transmissibility
ested in the response at the excitation frequency only, is given by, (Rivin, 2001; Harris, 1995)
as expressed by Eqn.(5), the transmitted force can be
written as
1
|Ta |max(linear) ≈ (17)
2ζ
 
ˆ 3 3
ft = −2 ζ Ω X̂ sin θt + X̂ + α X̂ cos θt
4
= A sin θt + B cos θt It should also be noted that the expression for the peak
(13) transmissibility of a nonlinear isolator with symmetric
cubic restoring force given by Eqn.(16), reduces to that
where θt = cos(Ω τ + ϕt ). Thus, the magnitude of the of a linear system Eqn.(17) when α = 0. In Figures
transmitted force is, (Ravindra and Mallik, 1994) 4 and 5 the transmissibility of hardening and softening
HSLDS isolators with ζ = 0.01 is plotted and the max-
p imum transmissibility calculated with Eqn.(16) shown.
F̂t = A2 + B 2 (14)

On the other hand, from Eqn.(2), the non-dimensional

magnitude of the applied force is F̂e = 1. It follows
that the magnitude of the force transmissibility is 60
|Ta | |Ta |max = 53.88
s 50
2
F̂t 3 2
|Ta | = = X̂ 1 + α X̂ + 4 ζ 2 Ω2 (15) 40
F̂e 4
30
The transmissibility of a hardening system with ζ = 20
0.01 and α = 10−4 is plotted in Fig.4. The trans-
missibility of a system with softening nonlinearity 10
with ζ = 0.01 and α = −10−4 is instead shown
0
in Fig.5. Note that the curves have been obtained 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
Ω 1.3
by substituting Eqns.(6) into Eqn.(15) and letting X̂
vary between 0 and X̂max . The dashed part of the Figure 4. Absolute Transmissibility of an isolator with hardening
curve denotes the unstable solution (Hamdan and Bur- HSLDS characteristic (α = 10−4 ) and ζ = 0.01. The maximum
ton, 1993; Rand, 2005). transmissibility calculated with Eqn.(16) is also shown

3.1 Peak transmissibility

It can be argued that there are two indices to mea-
sure the effectiveness of a vibration isolator: one is
the bandwidth of the isolation region, which is the
frequency region within which the transmitted force
becomes smaller than the excitation force, that is when 50
|Ta | < 11 ; the other is the peak-transmissibility, which |Ta |max = 43.30
|Ta |
is the maximum amplitude of the transmitted force for
40
a given amplitude of the input force.
30
In order to find an expression for the maximum trans-
missibility, the maximum amplitude response, X̂max ,
20
and the frequency at which this occurs, i.e. the jump-
down frequency Ωd , given by Eqns.(7) and (9) respec-
10
tively, are substituted into Eqn.(15). The resulting ex-
pression, valid for small damping, ζ ≪ 1, is
0
0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3
v
u s Ω
1 u 3 |α|
|Ta |max ≈ √ t 1+ 1+ (16) Figure 5. Absolute Transmissibility of an isolator with softening
2 2ζ 4 ζ2 HSLDS characteristic (α = −10−4 ) and ζ = 0.01. The maxi-
mum transmissibility calculated with Eqn.(16) is also shown

1 For
√
a linear system this begins at 2 time the natural frequency
(Rivin, 2001; Harris, 1995)
4 Comparison between the transmissibility of an HSLDS and linear isolator models can be plotted on
HSLDS mechanism and an equivalent linear iso- the same graph.
lator
In order to assess the vibration isolation performance For a linear system, the transmissibility is, (Harris,
of an HSLDS mount, its transmissibility is now com- 1995)
pared with that of an equivalent linear model. As said,
one way of obtaining the HSLDS characteristic is to s
1 + 4 ζl2 Ω2l
connect in parallel elements with constant positive with |Ta |(linear) = 2 (23)
other with nonlinear negative stiffness. In this case the (1 − Ω2l ) + 4 ζl2 Ω2l
equivalent linear model is defined as the system de-
prived of the element with negative stiffness. If op- where the nondimensional frequency ratio is Ωl =
timally tuned, that is if in the static equilibrium posi- ω/ωl .
tion the elements with negative stiffness are ineffective, On the other hand, the transmissibility of the HSLDS
the two systems have the same static stiffness. How- mount is given by Eqn.(15) where Ω = ω/ωn or
ever, the insertion of elements with negative stiffness
alters also the linear coefficient of the restoring force,
Ωl = Ω β (24)
Eqn.(1). Without loss of generality, it can be stated that

For the sake of consistency, when plotting the transmis-

k1 = β 2 kl (18)
sibility of a HSLDS and a linear isolator on the same
graph, the values on the frequency axis have to com-
where kl is the stiffness of the equivalent linear iso- ply with Eqn.(24). To appreciate the benefit offered by
lator, and 0 < β 2 < 1 depends on the type of neg- the HSLDS isolator, the transmissibility of the linear
ative stiffness mechanism. If there were no mecha- and nonlinear isolator have been plotted on a decibel
nism with negative stiffness then β = 1 and, of course, scale in Fig. 6. In the example shown the linear model
k1 = kl and k3 = 0. This observation is important has ζl = 0.005 and for the hardening HSLDS isolator
when comparing the transmissibility curves of a linear β = 0.5 and α = 10−4 . Because the frequency ratio on
and a HSLDS isolator. In fact, the dynamic properties the x-axis is Ωl = ω/ωl , the value of Ω used to com-
of the HSLDS isolation mount (e.g. jump frequency, pute the transmissibility of the HSLDS system, given
maximum transmissibility) have been derived in terms by Eqn.(15), had to be scaled according to Eqn.(24).
of the nondimensional parameters of Eqn.(3). A key As expected, the transmissibility of the linear system
parameter in the nondimensionalisation is the charac- reaches its peak value of 1/2ζ = 40 dB at Ωl = 1. The
teristic frequency ωn2 = k1 /m which is clearly differ- wider range of the frequency isolation region and the
ent for a linear and a HSLDS system. In particular, for reduction of the peak transmissibility are clearly vis-
a linear system ible. From the figure it can be seen that the HSLDS
mount does indeed offer better isolation performance
than its equivalent linear model. The peak value is
r
kl
ωl = (19) smaller and the isolation region is extended. It is im-
m

whilst for an HSLDS mount is

50
r |Ta | [dB]
β 2 kl 40
ωn = = β ωl (20)
m 30

20 Isolation region
of linear isolator
As a consequence, the value of the damping ratio also
changes between a linear and a HSLDS isolator. The 10

damping ratio of a linear system is given by 0

−10 Isolation region of

c
ζl = (21) −20
HSLDS isolator
2 m ωl 0 0.5 1 1.5
Ωl

whereas for an HSLDS model is Figure 6. Comparison between the absolute transmissibility curves
of a linear (-.) and a hardening HSLDS (–) mount. For the linear
c ζl system ζl = 0.005 and for the HSLDS mount ζ = 0.01 (β =
ζ= = (22)
2 m ωn β 0.5)

Eqns.(20) and (22) can be seen as ‘scaling laws’,

by means of which the transmissibility curves of the portant to note that the ‘bend’ of the transmissibility
 of a mass suspended on a HSLDS spring can often
120
be described by the Duffing equation. In this paper,
|Ta |
100
the approximate solution to the Duffing equation has
α = αlim been used to determine simple analytical expressions
80 α = 2 αlim for the maximum amplitude of the response and the
jump-down frequency. These expressions have been
60 used to derive an analytical expression for the trans-
missibility of the system which compares favourably
40
against the equivalent linear isolator.
20

0
0.5 1 Ωl 1.5 References
Alabuzhev, P., A. Gritchin, L. Kim, G. Migirenko,
Figure 7. Transmissibility curves of a linear mount (-.) and of a V. Chon and P. Stepanov (1989). Vibration Protect-
two HSLDS (–) system with α = αlim and α = 2 αlim . For the ing and Measuring Systems with Quasi-Zero Stiffness.
linear system ζl = 0.005 and for the HSLDS mount ζ = 0.01 Hemisphere Publishing, NY.
(β = 0.5) Carrella, A. (2008). Passive vibration isolators with
high-static-low-dynamic stiffness. PhD thesis. Uni-
versity of Southampton - Institute of Sound and Vi-
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α which, in turn, depends on the amplitude of the ap- Carrella, A., M.J. Brennan and T.P. Waters (2007).
plied force and the coefficient of nonlinearity. If a sys- Static analysis of a passive vibration isolator with
tem with a hardening HSLDS mount is subject to large quasi-zero-stiffness characteristic. Journal of Sound
amplitudes of excitation or has a strong nonlinearity, and Vibration 301(3-5), 678–689.
its transmissibility curve might intersect and even go Carrella, A., Waters T.P. Brennan, M.J. and K. Shin
beyond that of the linear mount2 . In order to set a cri- (2008). On the design of a high-static-low-dynamic-
terion for comparing the isolation performance, it can stiffness isolator using linear mechanical springs and
be argued that the benefits of a HSLDS mount cease magnets. Journal of Sound and Vibration.
when the jump-down frequency coincides with the nat- Friswell, M.I. and J.E.T. Penny (1994). The accuracy
ural frequency of its equivalent linear model. The lim- of jump frequencies in series solutions of the response
iting value of α can be thus found by imposing that of a duffing oscillator. Journal of Sound and Vibration
169(2), 261 – 269.
β Ωd = 1 (25) Hamdan, M.N. and T.D. Burton (1993). On the steady
state response and stability of non-linear oscillators
If it is assumed that ζ ≪ 1, substituting Eqn.(9) in using harmonic balance. Journal of Sound and Vibra-
Eqn.(25) and solving for α yields tion 166(2), 255 – 266.
Harris (1995). Shock and Vibrations Handbook. iv ed..
16 ζ 2 (1 − β 2 ) McGraw Hill.
αlim = (26) Hartog, J.P. Den (1985). Mechanical Vibrations. iv ed..
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5 Conclusions Platus, D.L. (1999). Negative-stiffness-mechanism vi-
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as vibration isolators. Journal of Sound and Vibration
283, 1216 – 1228.
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