Design of a Miniaturized Pneumatic Vibration Isolator With High-Static-Low-Dynamic Stiffness

In the ultraprecision vibration isolation systems, it is desirable for the isolator to have a larger load bearing capacity and a broader isolation bandwidth simultaneously. Generally, pneumatic spring can bear large load and achieve relatively low natural frequency by enlarging its chamber volume. However, the oversized isolator is inconvenient to use and might cause instability. To reduce the size, a miniaturized pneumatic vibration isolator (MPVI) with high-static-low-dynamic stiffness (HSLDS) is developed in this paper. The volume of proposed isolator is minimized by a compact structure design that combines two magnetic rings in parallel with the pneumatic spring. The two magnetic rings are arranged in the repulsive configuration and can be mounted into the chamber to provide the negative stiffness. Then dynamic model of the developed MPVI is built and the isolation performances are analyzed. Finally, experiments on the isolator with and without the magnetic rings are conducted. The final experimental results are consistent with the dynamical model and verify the effectiveness of the developed vibration isolator.