# Micro-Interface Slip Damping in a Compressed Coir Vibration Isolator

## TL;DR

This paper explores a natural, eco-friendly vibration isolator made from compressed coir that uses micro-interface slip damping, which is less affected by temperature than traditional polymer-based systems.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel enhancement to the Masing model by incorporating time evolution from mem-models for better hysteresis representation.

## Key findings

- The coir isolator shows highly nonlinear hysteresis under cyclic loading.
- The proposed model with time integration improves the representation of micro-interface slip damping.
- The modeling approach was validated using data from coir and clayey soil.

## Abstract

The micro-interface slip damping mechanism is insensitive to temperature, making it suitable for applications where the operating environment makes viscoelastic polymers ineffective. Damping material systems that rely on micro-interface slip typically embody randomly disposed interlocking units leading to complex material behaviors. This work studies a compressed coir vibration isolator that provides a lightweight, low cost and environmentally friendly alternative to common polymer devices. Under cyclic loading, it displays highly nonlinear hysteresis and a gradual change in properties based on the load history. The nonlinear hysteresis is captured with a Masing model, which has been shown to provide an adequate phenomenological representation of systems with large numbers of miniature stick-slip contacts. This study further explores a new way to enrich the Masing model by encoding time evolution using restoring force or displacement time integral, directly adopted from mem-models, a new family of models transferred from electrical engineering. In addition to using the data from the coir isolator, two additional datasets from clayey soil, another application of micro-interface slip damping, are used to validate the modeling approach.