NSM (Negative Stiffness Phenomenon) is an alternate to passive and active isolation

systems, working purely on the basis of flexural buckling. Its method of isolation
utilizes flexural instability to our advantage by centering a flexure cantilever rod
and a horizontal flexural member and attaching it to a spring system. This instability
creates negative stiffness at equilibrium position (horizontal level) which in turn
allows the payload (supported directly above the main spring system) to
oscillate up and down with extremely small amplitude
about the equilibrium position and low frequencies. The
effective stiffness of NSM based isolation devices can be
expressed as K=kskn , where ks is the spring stiffness and kn is the

magnitude of negative stiffness of buckling flexures. The effective K

can be reduced to as low as zero that in turn reduces frequency of

Figure 1
vibration n=
k
m which is directly proportional to

square root of system stiffness, k.

Similarly horizontal vibration is attenuated by beam column effect by
calibrating the EI of the column so that its Euler buckling
load equals that of payload weight. This allows lateral
swaying with negligible or zero stiffness. Combining these
two systems along with tilt isolation beneath the base plate
allows 6 DOF isolation for a wide range of pulse
excitation frequencies. The transmissibility curves for
minus-k products show almost 100 % reduction or attenuation of input signal when
compared to other passive control devices. This attenuation is even more
pronounced at high excitation frequencies which makes sense since the operating
wn of the isolater is almost zero. This means that minusk products can be used in
applications with a wide range of excitation frequency i.e. in spacecraft telescopes,
electron microscope imaging, medical diagnostics etc.
The minus k product shown on website only charts transmissibility curves for a
steady state vibration/excitation at a time i.e. sinosouidal waves with increasing
frequency. There is no time history analysis or erratic vibration performed to assess
its performance when an input signal has multiple resonant frequencies. This is
important from the viewpoint of earthquakes where ground motion can be erratic
and contain multiple frequencies. Also the performance/attenuation of negative
stiffness product reduces at extremely low vibration frequencies so its only effective
for high frequency vibration. It also needs to be constantly adjusted for varying
payload weights in order to keep the horizontal buckling flexures horizontal at
equilibrium position. However, since the whole process is based on mechanical
spring action, there is no power supply involved so maintenance and running cost is
minimal for these products.