Modeling and analysis of a negative stiffness magnetic suspension vibration isolator with experimental investigations

This paper presents a negative stiffness magnetic suspension vibration isolator (NSMSVI) using magnetic spring and rubber ligaments. The positive stiffness is obtained by repulsive magnetic spring while the negative stiffness is gained by rubber ligaments. In order to study the vibration isolation performance of the NSMSVI, an analytical expression of the vertical stretch force of the rubber ligament is constructed. Experiments are carried out, which demonstrates that the analytical expression is effective. Then an analytical expression of the vertical stiffness of the rubber ligament is deduced by the derivative of the stretch force of the rubber ligament with respect to the displacement of the inner magnetic ring. Furthermore, the parametric study of the magnetic spring and rubber ligament are carried out. As a case study, the size dimensions of the magnetic spring and rubber ligament are determined. Finally, an NSMSVI table was built to verify the vibration isolation performance of the NSMSVI. The transmissibility curves of the NSMSVI are subsequently calculated and tested by instruments. The experimental results reveal that there is a good consistency between the measured transmissibility and the calculated ones, which proves that the proposed NSMSVI is effective and can realize low-frequency vibration isolation. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4751863]