Vibration Isolation Mounts
What is Vibration Isolation?
In engineering there is often a need to reduce the transmission of vibration between two elements while still maintaining mechanical support. Ultimately, the purpose of a vibration mount – and vibration isolation in general – is to reduce the effects of vibration and/or noise on people, equipment or the structure being engineered. A good vibration isolator lowers the natural frequency of a system to below the excitation (or disturbing) frequency. Keeping these two frequencies “out of sync” greatly reduces the problems of vibration.
What Are Vibration Isolation Mounts?
Depending upon the application, Sorbothane¨ can absorb over 50% of the vibration energy over most of its temperature operating range at frequencies from 10 to 30,000 hertz. Vibration isolation mounts can protect objects and sensitive components from affecting each other, isolate or reduce annoying and potentially damaging noise, improve the user experience, protect the human body and extended the life of the application, equipment or structure.
Sorbothane reduces vibration and lower structure-borne noise. It can be used for a variety of applications including isolating everything from fans, motors, pumps, machinery and compressors to air handling equipment. Isolation mounts using Sorbothane work well for vibration control and high frequency sound reduction. Whether it is the vibration from a jet engine, the shock from dropping a cell phone or other hand-held device, or the noise from a blower that is resonating in an enclosure, Sorbothane can be configured to meet your needs. There are few limits to the Industrial, consumer or scientific applications that vibration isolation with Sorbothane can’t improve.
Sorbothane Isolation Mount Solutions
Noise and vibration isolation is a complicated and important part of almost all areas of engineering and product design and development. Sorbothane can help. During the design phase, engineers are always concerned about preventing one object from affecting another. A vibration isolation mount using Sorbothane can be used in many ways and have the ultimate goal of substantially reducing the transmission of vibrations from the first element to the second.
Sorbothane is produced in a wide durometer range from 25 to 85 Shore 00 Scale and is considered to be a super soft, viscoelastic polyurethane material. Sorbothane’s liquid-solid properties allow it to simultaneously absorb shock and vibration energy and make it preferable to one dimensional materials like rubber and other polyurethanes.
Controlling vibration low transmissibility (amplification) at resonance shows Sorbothane’s damping superiority over other elastomers. Low transmissibility means less damage to sensitive components. Isolation at large frequency ratios also shows Sorbothane’s capacity to isolate vibration.
Unlike fluid-based shock absorbers or foam products, Sorbothane isolates vibration but also absorbs shock efficiently for millions of cycles. Sorbothane eliminates the need for metal springs to return the system to its equilibrium position after absorbing a shock.
Ultimately, Sorbothane’s unique composition combines shock and vibration absorption, good memory, vibration isolation and vibration damping characteristics into one amazing material. While many materials exhibit one of these characteristics, Sorbothane combines all of them in a stable material with a long fatigue life.
Interested in learning more about how Sorbothane’s vibration isolation mounts can improve your product? Contact Sorbothane’s engineering team to request a quote.
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