Numerical characterisation of nonlinear stiffness properties of pre-stressed vibration isolation mounts

Numerical characterisation of nonlinear stiffness properties of pre-stressed vibration isolation mounts was presented. A computational procedure was developed to evaluate the condensed stiffness matrix of vibration isolators required by the vibration of viscoelastic and elastic structures (VVES) program. The procedure was based on a nonlinear finite element program which is able to handle complicated mount geometry and nonlinear effect associated with the static pre-loading. Three practical vibration isolation mount structures were analyzed and satisfactory numerical results were obtained.