Lateral stiffness of polycal wire rope isolators: An experimental study

The PWRI is a type of passive isolation system which is commonly used as shock and vibration isolation system especially applied in lightweight equipment and electronic devices. The PWRI can provide isolation in all direction. It can be flexible in any direction and in all three planes which depends on its stiffness. An experimental study of the lateral stiffness of Polycal Wire Rope Isolators (PWRI) is presented in this paper. It also studied effect of variations in height and width of PWRI on its static stiffnesses. Suitable experimental setup was designed and manufactured to meet the test conditions. The results show that their elastic stiffnesses for lateral loading conditions are highly influenced by their geometric dimensions. It is found that their compressive stiffness reduced by 56% for an increment of 25% in their height to width ratio. Therefore, the stiffness of PWRI can be fine-tuned by controlling their dimensions according to the requirements of the application. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.