The Oval Leaf Springs (OLS), a class of passive isolation devices, have been successfully used as antishock and anti-vibration mounts to protect equipment and machinery. Available literature is insufficient to understand the behavior of OLS mounts. To estimate the spring stiffness, we conducted theoretical and finite element analyses (FEA) on a large number of springs having different geometrical and mechanical properties. Based on the principle of minimum potential energy, this paper presents theoretical expressions, which describe the linear static stiffness of OLS mounts subjected to line loading in the vertical (compression) and lateral (bending-shear) in-plane directions. Comparison studies showed a good agreement between numerical and analytical models. We observed a negligible effect of transverse shearing on the spring stiffness. In addition, it was demonstrated that the stiffness is more sensitive to the radius compared to the other geometric properties of the spring. Nonlinear FEA considering the hyper-viscoelastic behavior of the damping compound showed that the OLS mounts have higher energy dissipation capabilities in the lateral direction, which increase at low frequency and large amplitude loadings.

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