Vibration & Noise Isolation
Effective vibration isolation is critical to the performance of many systems. It is often much more challenging than expected because the structural dynamics of the supporting structure, and the isolated structure, also affect the isolation performance. Isolation resonances can often create other vibration problems and confound an engineering team. We have successfully designed vibration isolation into countless systems over the years using unique custom solutions as well as adapting standard components and applying them properly to the design.
Isolation systems we have designed from scratch, or debugged and improved, range from a custom isolation design for tiny phase-locked crystal oscillators in aerospace applications, to pump isolation in quiet consumer products, to the debugging and low cost modification of a multi-ton isolation platform of a coal fired power plant.
Vibration isolation in often used for two very different purposes:
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Isolating a large vibration source form its surroundings
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Isolating a sensitive piece of equipment from large base motions
The design constraints involve the frequency range in which vibration isolation is needed, the frequency dependent sensitivity of the equipment that is to be isolated, or the frequency range of the disturbance forces on the noisy equipment that are to be isolated from its base.
To create effective isolation the payload dynamics and the isolator design considerations are very important, but the dynamics of the base to which the isolated component is attached are equally as important. The base dynamics are often overlooked and yet they are very much part of the dynamic system. The dynamic stiffness of the base will often be the limiting element of the system and if it is not included in the system design, an otherwise good isolation design can be discarded as ineffective, and other poor and costly "Band-Aid" solutions applied, in an attempt to achieve the same end.
Many Acoustic Noise problems can be solved and significantly simplified with the proper analysis and design of vibration isolation.
Isolation systems for high resolution equipment often perform as expected at low frequency but resonant coupling between the isolation frame and the isolated structure compromised the isolation effectiveness at higher frequencies. Analysis of the vibration isolation system frame, the base dynamic stiffness, and the Payload Sensitivity are necessary to insure that a system will perform as expected in a given environment. We have years of experience designing isolation systems that include the entire system from ground to payload.