Time-modulated inerters as building blocks for nonreciprocal mechanical devices

In this work, we discuss the realization of mechanical devices with non-reciprocal attributes enabled by inertia-amplifying, time-modulated mechanisms. Our fundamental building-block features a mass, connected to a fixed ground through a spring and to a moving base through a mechanism-based inerter. Through analytical derivations and numerical simulations, we provide details on the nonlinear dynamics of such system. We demonstrate that providing a time modulation to the inerter's base produces two additions on the dynamics of the main spring–mass oscillator: (i) an effective time-modulated mass term, and (ii) a time varying force term; both quantities are functions of the modulating frequency. With specific choices of parameters, the modulation-induced force term – that represents one of the main drawbacks in most experimental realizations of purely time-modulated systems – vanishes and we are left with an effective time-varying mass. We then illustrate that this building block can be leveraged to realize non-reciprocal wave manipulation devices, and concentrate on a non-reciprocal beam-like waveguide. The simple design and the clean performance of our system makes it an attractive candidate for the realization of fully mechanical non-reciprocal devices.