Experimental Studies Related to the use of High Temperature Elastomers as External Damper for Rotating Systems

The widespread application of elastomers in vibration control and isolation may be attributed to the simplicity in design, manufacture and maintenance of such dampers. The stiffness and damping properties of elastomers are dependent on various factors such as strain, frequency of loading, temperature, preloading and geometry of the dam per elements. This work is an attempt to evaluate the performance of elastomer dampers using certain high temperature (up to 250 C) elastomers commercially available, such as, Silicone, Flurosilicone and Tercite for specific application with emphasis on rotating systems. In the present work Elastomer button cartridges are used in the rotor-bearing rig designed and fabricated for the purpose to evaluate the performance of the damper.\ud Detailed experimentation conduct& in the dynamic rig indicates that damping to a reasonable extent could be provided by the elastomers. In order to study the effect of temperature on vibration attenuation in dynamic condition, experiments were conducted by varying the temperature. It is observed that the effect of the temperature on the vibration reduction was only marginal. Further studies might be required to explore the possibilities of enhancing the damping potential. The in general has indicated that fluorosilicone might probably be the potential candidate for such applications\u