Abstract
We present an enhancement to the existing elliptical leaf spring (ELS) for improved damping and energy dissipation capabilities. The ELS consists of a high tensile stainless steel elliptical leaf spring with polymer or rubber compound. This device is conceived as a shock and vibration isolator for equipment and lightweight structures. The enhancement to the ELS consists of a lead spring plugged vertically between the leaves (referred to as lead-rubber elliptical leaf spring (LRELS)). The lead is shown to produce hysteretic damping under plastic deformations. The LRELS isolator is shown to exhibit nonlinear hysteretic behavior. In both horizontal directions, the LRELS showed symmetrical rate independent behavior but undergoes stiffening behavior under large displacements. However, in the vertical direction, the LRELS behavior is asymmetric, exhibiting softening behavior in compression and stiffening behavior in tension. Mathematical models based on the Bouc-Wen model, describing the hysteretic behavior of the proposed isolator, are developed and numerically calibrated using a series of finite element analyses. The LRELS is found to be effective in the in-plane and vertical directions. The improved damping and energy dissipation of the LRELS is provided from the hysteretic damping of the lead spring.
Highlights
Shock and vibration isolation of sensitive equipment and machinery has become an integrated part of every engineering design
We investigate the cyclic behavior of the proposed passive isolator in all three directions using three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis (FEA)
We investigated a method to enhance the elliptical leaf spring (ELS) by plugging a lead spring between the upper and lower face plates of the “U” shaped stainless
Summary
Shock and vibration isolation of sensitive equipment and machinery has become an integrated part of every engineering design. The elliptical leaf spring (ELS), a type of passive isolators, has found many applications in the isolation of individual equipment. [21], develops a series of shock and vibration mounts including the elliptical leaf spring antivibration mounts. Their basic design employs two or more high ranges of tensile stainless steel U-formed leaves, situated at each end, forming an elliptical shape when joined together in the center portion with face plates. This paper presents a new design which has improved damping and energy dissipation over the original ELS design, referred to here as lead-rubber elliptical leaf sparing (LRELS), by incorporating a lead spring. Mathematical models describing the hysteresis behavior of the LRELS are developed based on the Bouc-Wen model of hysteresis [25, 26] and calibrated with numerical data
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