Dynamic performance analysis of vehicle seats with embedded negative stiffness elements

Various vibration isolators using negative stiffness elements have been proposed in order to improve ride comfort of passengers in vehicles. In this paper, five different ones are compared. Four of them have been already propped, while the fifth one is novel, based on the KDamping concept, which has proven efficient in other applications. After optimising each one with respect to static and dynamic factors of ride comfort, three types of analysis are performed. In the first type, the models are simulated for the optimum solutions, for two more excitations which correspond to the response of the vehicle's body while driving over road profiles of Class B and C. In the second type, the models are simulated for different seated passengers. While in the third type, based on the Pareto theory, three solutions are finally selected for each model, and their transmissibility from seat to head (STHT) is compared. The main conclusion is that the isolator using the KDamping concept has proven its adaptability and universality for different excitations corresponding to different road classes and for different seated passengers, minimising the resonance frequency around 0.56 Hz and providing the most compact and comfortable optimum design solutions among all the other models.