Vibration Control – A Four Decade Tradition

Vibration control has become an unlikely hot topic these days. Making a name for itself in the news, vibration control has even become the subject of a recently published report titled “Active Control of Structures.” This pamphlet “introduces active vibration control through the use of smart materials and structures (such as MR/ER fluids, shape memory alloys and piezoelectric materials), semi-active control devices, and a variety of feedback options. Examples employed include telescope vibration control and bridge cable damping,” according to a press release issued by the publisher.

What puts such an overlooked topic so suddenly in the spotlight? Vibration control has become a pertinent issue across many industries. For instance, its methods and devices are a key element in civil engineering, where active, passive and semi-active vibrations control is used in the damping of civil structures.

Buildings and bridge towers that people encounter every day make use of vibration control. Especially in Japan’s civil structures, where space is at such a premium, vibration control technology takes a front row seat. There, vibration control has been setting recent trends. The damping of vibrations in the country’s cable-stayed structures is particularly active.

“New types of vibration control methods and devices, including the newly developed reduced-order physical modelling method for structural control,” are a central focus of the pamphlet. Since 1970, the Vibro-Insulator® product line of noise, shock, and vibration controls has served as the main focal point for one producer’s custom-molded rubber and rubber-to-metal bonded parts’ research and development.

The Vibro-Insulator® line of vibration control fail-safe mounts with interlocking metal designs can be used on static or dynamic loads. These competitively priced vibration control devices sell through distributors around the world. Over the years, numerous patents have been awarded for these full-featured vibration control mounts.

A decade into the Vibro-Insulator® line’s launch saw a rededication by the manufacturer toward an improved metal-to-rubber bonding and vibration control product line expansion. During the 1990s, the Vibro-Insulator® product line tripled in size, adding many new customers who were seeking to find better ways to improve their products while reducing their costs.

That decade witnessed controlled rapid growth in both custom molding and the Vibro-Insulators® product line. A reformulation of many of the neoprene and natural rubber compounds used to make the vibration control Vibro-Insulators® lay at the foundation of that rapid growth. By improving the tensile strength of the various elastomers, and the overall rubber-to-metal bond of the vibration control product line, the Vibro-Insulators® producer achieved its goals. Design improvements also increased the strength of the metal hardware used in the Vibro-Insulators®.

Enter the 21st century and active vibration control has become a state-of-the-art process in terms of its theory, design and application. The main difference today is that active vibration control can be explained through the use of smart materials and structures, as well as semi-active control devices. No wonder then that the report’s publisher predicts that “as the demand for high performance structural systems increases, so will the demand for information and innovation in structural vibration control.”