A planar shock isolation system with high-static-low-dynamic-stiffness characteristic based on cables

In this paper, a simple and designable shock isolation system with ideal high-static-low-dynamic-stiffness (HSLDS) is proposed, which is intended for the horizontal plane shock isolation application. In this system, the isolated object is suspended by several bearing cables and constrained by a number of uniformly distributed pretensioned cables in the horizontal plane, where the low dynamic stiffness of the system is main controlled by the pretension of the planar cables, whilst the high static stiffness is determined by the axial stiffness of the planar cables and their geometric settings. To obtain the HSLDS characteristic of the system, a brief theoretical description of the relationship between the restoring force and displacement is derived. By obtaining the three-order Taylor expansion with sufficient accuracy of the restoring force, influence of planar cable parameters on the low dynamic and high static stiffness is thus given, therefore, the required HSLDS isolator can be easily designed by adjusting the planar cable length, pretension and tensile stiffness. Finally, the isotropy characteristic of the restoring force of the system with different numbers of planar cables is investigated. To evaluate the performance of the system, a rigid isolated object and flexible cables coupling simulation model considering the contacts of the system is established by using multibody dynamics approach. In this model, flexible cables are simulated by 3-node cable element based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation; the contact between cable and isolated object is simulated based on Hertz contact theory. Finally, the time-domain shock excitation is converted from the design shock spectrum on the basis of BV043/85 criterion. The design procedure of this isolator and some useful guidelines for choosing cable parameters are presented. In addition, a summary about the performance of the isolators with different numbers of cables shocking in an arbitrary direction is given in the conclusion.