Vibration mitigation using an inerter-based isolation system

Extreme dynamic environments can result in the failure of structures and equipment. To mitigate these effects, isolation systems can be used. In recent years, inerters have been studied as a part of different structural control methods. The inerter is attractive for many structural control methods because it can produce large mass effects despite having a small physical mass through the transformation of translational motion to the rotational motion of a flywheel. While inerters have been considered in structural control, experimental studies of isolation systems featuring inerters has been limited. This project seeks to study the ability of the addition of an inerter to improve the dynamic performance of isolation systems when considering a random vibration environment. The results of this study demonstrate that the inerter can have a large impact on the dynamic properties of an isolated system, including shifting the isolation mode frequency lower while reducing its amplitude. High frequency noise did result from the inclusion of the inerter but may not be of significant concern depending on the frequency range of interest. The strong performance of the inerter in a simplified isolation system observed during this work motivates future studies of inerters in isolation systems.