Study on vibration isolation properties of solid and liquid mixture

Abstract

This paper describes a new type of vibration isolator which is based on solid and liquid mixture (SALiM) and has outstanding performance in vibration isolation and shock absorbing. The SALiM mixture consists of incompressible liquid and a number of compressible elastic solid elements. When under shock or vibration, the incompressible liquid can instantly pass the pressure on to all the solid elements in the container of the isolator, which causes all the solid elements to compress and deform simultaneously. As a result it could greatly absorb and dissipate the energy of vibrations and shocks. With proper design the isolator could have an excellent performance on both vibration isolation and shock absorbing. In this work hollow rubber spheres are used as elastic elements, and the dynamic properties of the isolator is investigated numerically and experimentally. The nonlinear force–displacement relation of the isolator is established. The equation of motion of a single DOF system with a SALiM isolator is established. Using the precise integration method developed by Zhong [Time precise integration method for structural dynamical equations, Journal of Dalian University of Technology 34 (1994) 131–136], the primary responses in time domain are evaluated and compared with the measured with satisfaction. Using the same numerical method, the system stability is also analysed with the trajectories in phase plane. Finally, the vibration isolation property is estimated and assessed based on energy transmissibility.