Abstract
The Oval Leaf Springs (OLS), a class of passive isolation devices, have been successfully used as anti-shock and anti-vibration mounts to protect equipment and machinery. Available literature is insufficient to understand the behavior of OLS mounts. To estimate the spring stiffness, we conducted theoretical and finite element analyses (FEA) on a large number of springs having different geometrical and mechanical properties. Based on the principle of minimum potential energy, this paper presents theoretical expressions, which describe the linear static stiffness of OLS mounts subjected to line loading in the vertical (compression) and lateral (bending–shear) in-plane directions. Comparison studies showed a good agreement between numerical and analytical models. We observed a negligible effect of transverse shearing on the spring stiffness. In addition, it was demonstrated that the stiffness is more sensitive to the radius compared to the other geometric properties of the spring. Nonlinear FEA considering the hyper-viscoelastic behavior of the damping compound showed that the OLS mounts have higher energy dissipation capabilities in the lateral direction, which increase at low frequency and large amplitude loadings.
Highlights
In engineering, vibration is one of the main factors that need to be considered while designing equipment or structures
Analytical models have been developed to estimate the elastic stiffness of the Oval Leaf Spring mounts (OLS) under unidirectional line-loading configuration
The finite element analyses (FEA) performed on several Oval Leaf Springs (OLS) mounts proved the accuracy of the proposed theoretical expressions in predicting the spring stiffnesses in the vertical and horizontal in-plane directions, even with included transverse shearing effects
Summary
Vibration is one of the main factors that need to be considered while designing equipment or structures. Verbaan et al [16] demonstrated the advantage of applying viscoelastic materials instead of purely viscous materials as damping medium in mechanical dampers They found that at high frequencies, the stiffness increases and the damping capacity decrease significantly. This is in line with the findings of De Lima et al [17] who conducted a time-domain modeling procedure of structures containing both viscoelastic materials and shape memory alloys (SMA) wires for vibration mitigation. A nonlinear, large deflection, FEA study is conducted to characterize the effective stiffness and to assess the energy dissipation capabilities of four mounts, assuming the nonlinearity of the steel face-plates and the hyperviscoelasticity of the damping compound [13]
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