Evaluation Of Damping Properties OfComposite Mount Using A Five-element ModelWith Variable Parameters

A mount is designed that combines air-spring with viscous fluid. In this mount, air-spring generates the dynamic stiffness, and the shearing of viscous fluid generates the loss stiffness. The conceptual purposes are to adjust a neutral position easily by changing the pressure of the air-spring and to prevent a rapid drop of the damping performance from the stationary characteristics in the case of excess load. The purpose of this research is to evaluate damping properties of the composite mount. First, the dynamic characteristics of the composite mount are obtained by excitation tests of the mount itself. But the characteristics might not be identified by the standard mechanical model accuracy because they depend on not only excitation frequency but also amplitude. So the nonlinear dynamic characteristics are identified using the five-element model with a variable parameter. Finally, the composite mount is compared with the viscous mount by simulation using the identified model, and the damping performance is quantitatively indicated.