To achieve passive vibration control, a non-linear flywheel design is proposed and fabricated from two different materials. The corresponding mathematical models for the non-linear flywheels are developed. A two-terminal hydraulic device and a two-terminal inverse screw device are introduced to analyze the two non-linear flywheels. Experiments are carried out to identify key parameters for both the two-terminal hydraulic system and the inverse screw system. The performance of three different suspension systems are evaluated; these are the traditional suspension system, the suspension system consisting of an ideal two-terminal device with constant flywheel and the suspension system consisting of an ideal two-terminal device with a non-linear flywheel (NF suspension system). Results show that the NF suspension system can outperform the other two suspension systems under certain conditions. The performance of a suspension system with the non-linear flywheel under different changing ratio is evaluated, and an optimal changing ratio is identified under certain circumstances.

To obtain the steady-state response of the two-terminal device with non-linear flywheel, three different methods have been applied in this book. These methods are the single harmonic balance method, the multi-harmonic balance method and the scanning iterative multi-harmonic balance method, respectively. Compared to the single harmonic balance method, the multi-harmonic balance method provides a much more accurate system response. However, the proposed scanning iterative multi-harmonic balance method provides more accurate system response than the single harmonic balance method with much less computational effort.