Performance analysis of nonlinear vibration isolator with magneto-rheological damper

A nonlinear vibration isolator is considered to study effectiveness of isolation against harmonic force and displacement excitations. Nonlinearity in the magneto-rheological (MR) fluid based damper as well as in the elastic member is taken into account. The MR-damper has been modeled including Bouc-Wen hysteretic element and the spring is taken to have cubic nonlinearity. Analytical expression for the energy dissipation characteristics of the damper has been derived. Near resonant response of the isolated mass is obtained by a modified averaging technique suitable for hysteretic type nonlinearity present in the system. The performance of the isolators is estimated for various nonlinear stiffness values, both hardening and softening types. Different performance measures are also proposed to judge the performance of the nonlinear isolator.