Development of a vibration isolator with dry friction damping

A new type of suspension component with dry friction damping has been developed. It consist of an Omega-shaped spring wire which ends can slip in their mountings. By positioning these components under 90 degrees around the suspended object, the suspension functions in all six degrees of freedom. The suspension component will be modeled as a series connection of a spring with a coulomb damper, which in turn is in parallel with a second spring. This model will be analyzed using Hamilton's equations of motion to deal with the non-linear phenomena. An experimental setup has been realized whereupon the suspension components are validated using hammer impulses. The observed response is an efficiently damped sinusoidal motion which turns into an undamped sinusoid with small amplitude. In the spectrum, the resonance has been limited in magnitude to 10 dB and the isolation characteristic remains −40 dB/decade equivalent to the undamped spring.