Adaptive wire rope isolator

Machinery, equipment, personnel and buildings often have to be protected from vibrations and shocks. The wire rope isolator is widely used to reduce the vibrations of structures in military applications. In the structures where the mass of the isolated object is changing an adaptation of the isolator is useful. In this study adaptive wire rope isolator was developed using shape memory alloy to change the stiffness of the isolator. This paper describes the principle of the prototype isolator and laboratory tests of prototype isolator based on field measurements of tracked vehicle. The studied adaptive isolator can be used in industrial and transport applications where low power consumption is required. The change in isolator stiffness was fourfold which was comparable to the protected mass that was varied. The adaptive isolator proved to work excellent in realistic laboratory tests. Response of the adaptive wire rope isolator was decreased even 80 % compared to existing passive isolator when vibration excitation was used with shaker table. The difference between passive and adaptive isolator was even higher when shock loading was used with shaker and shock table.