Research on the influence of spring stiffness in an ER isolator

In this paper, the problem of Electrorheological(ER) technology's application in the vibration isolation system is empirically studied. Based on the particular characteristics of the Electrorheological Fluids (ERF) tunable damping, a metal-spring ER isolator was designed and its working principle is mainly discussed. By theoretical analysis of its simplified physical model, the dynamic response of an ER isolator is frequency- and amplitude- dependent and sensitive to structural parameters. The controllable parameters here can be the system equivalent spring stiffness K and damping coefficient C of ERF. With experiment, the exertion of ER effect was controlled through the change of K and C. Consequently, the system dynamic stiffness, which is used to describe the dynamic properties of system isolation performance, can be changed obviously. According to the dynamic performance tests, the result confirmed that applying different electric field strength could change the dynamic peculiarity of the metal-spring ER isolator. The configuration design of the ER equipment, such as stiffness ratio of two fluid chambers and the size of the electric field, which are important factors for the tunable range of ER isolator.