Study of a Novel Nonlinear Viscoelastic Bio-Inspired Multi-Dimensional Vibration Isolation Device

This study proposes a novel viscoelastic bio-inspired multi-dimensional vibration isolation device (VBM-VI). The viscoelastic (VE) damper and the limb-like-structure (LLS) are first installed into the vibration device to make it simultaneously reveal excellent vibration isolation performance at three directions. First, the dynamic equations of the proposed device are established, and the significant coupling nonlinear characteristics caused by material and geometric factor together are discussed. Then, the harmonic balance method (HBM) is used to solve the nonlinear dynamic equation, and the geometrical parameters of the VE damper and LLS device are studied to assess the influence of coupling nonlinear characteristic on the vibration isolation performance. The results indicate that the coupling nonlinear characteristics have an excellent advantage on vibration control, and the proposed VBM-VI device can achieve different vibration isolation performances by adjusting the parameters of the VE damper or LLS. The study also shows that the vibration isolation performances at the horizontal and vertical directions are coupled and restricted with each other, showing different levels of sensitivity to parameter variation. Finally, a comparative study is performed between the traditional vibration isolation device (TV-VI) and the VBM-VI device, indicating that the coupling nonlinear characteristic caused by the VE damper and LLS possesses remarkable advantage of improving the vibration isolation performance of the VBM-VI device.