Design and control of a real-time variable stiffness vibration isolator

The purpose of this work is to explore the application and potential of magnetorheological elastomers (MRE) in vibration isolators. While several researchers have applied MREs to tunable vibration absorbers (TVA), little work has been done using MREs in primary isolation systems. Further, in cases where TVAs were developed, few if any, semi-active (SA) controllers were implemented in proof of concept experiments. This paper presents a MRE based vibration isolator design. To test the effectiveness of the MRE isolator a SA controller is developed to minimize payload velocity. Finally, experimental results are given, showing that the MRE isolator and SA controller system reduce resonances and payload velocities by 16 to 30 percent when compared to passive systems.