What Is an Anti-Vibration Mount?
Anti-vibration mounts are materials that absorb harmful vibrations generated during the operation of equipment and components and prevent them from being transmitted to the outside by supporting or sandwiching them between elastic materials such as rubber.
Vibrations generated by equipment and facilities can lead to sound damage to the equipment itself, and damage to surrounding parts, which can be reduced by using anti vibration mounts. In addition to equipment damage, anti-vibration mounts are used to improve user comfort by reducing vibration and shock.
Uses of Anti-Vibration Mounts
In building components, vibration isolator mounts are used to support various types of piping, outdoor units of air conditioners installed in buildings, elevators, and for floor vibration isolation.
In transportation equipment such as automobiles, they are used to mount engine suspensions, drive units, and other equipment to improve passenger comfort.
They are used as platforms for precision measuring and inspection instruments that do not tolerate vibration, such as high-magnification microscopes, surface roughness meters, and electronic balances for analysis.
They are also used in electronic equipment and home appliances to protect electronic circuit boards and components that are vulnerable to vibration.
Principle of Anti-Vibration Mounts
Anti-vibration mounts are inserted between a vibration source and an object subject to vibration. Elastic materials such as rubber, silicon, and urethane used in an anti vibration mount temporarily store the vibration energy generated by the equipment by deforming themselves, preventing the vibration from being transmitted directly to the object. To reduce the transmitted vibration, it is necessary to consider the natural frequency (number of vibrations per unit time) of the object.
Since an object will not vibrate significantly when shaken at a frequency far outside its natural frequency, the transmission of vibration can be reduced by separating the natural frequency, which is determined by the spring multiplier of the anti-vibration mount and the mass of the vibration source, from the object’s natural frequency.
The main purpose of anti-vibration mounts to reduce vibration is to avoid resonance by changing the natural frequency, which is determined by the mass of the object and the spring strength of the anti-vibration mount.