Analysis of vibration isolation performance of parallel air spring system for precision equipment transportation

Abstract

Precision equipment is usually accompanied with vibrations during road or railway transportation. Sometimes the vibration exceeds the given limit, leading to the damage of the equipment. It is necessary to control the vibration during the transportation. However, it is still difficult to adjust the parameters of a designed vibration isolation system for the transportation of different precision equipment under various road conditions. Aiming at satisfying the vibration isolation requirements of different precision equipment, this paper proposes a parallel air spring vibration isolation system based on the principle of limiting lateral deflection. According to the measured parameters, a rigid-body dynamics simulation model of parallel air spring vibration isolation system is established. Then its feasibility is verified, and the optimal parameters of the vibration isolation system are obtained by a simulation. Finally, the vibration isolation system is built and installed in the equipment to carry out the real vehicle transportation test. The test results show that the transportation vibration isolation system based on the parallel air spring structure has not only excellent vibration isolation efficiency but also acceptable lateral stability. The research results in this paper can provide a reference for the design of the vibration isolation system for the large precision equipment transportation.

A low-cost vibration isolation chamber – Making high precision experiments accessible

“…As the realm in which we work becomes smaller, the influence of mundane phenomena such as microseismical and microtremor vibrations become more significant, and when the dimensions of vibrations in some instances exceed the size of what we are working with, there is an obvious need for isolating specimens and machines from vibrations to produce credible results. This is especially important in modern microscopy, wherein reducing external vibrations is crucial for achieving high-resolution measurements [1] , [2] , but micro vibrations will also affect and potentially harm modern sensors [3] and sensitive machines [4] , [5] . To this end, solutions are implemented, with a wide variety of concepts such as air springs [5] , viscoelastic suspension [1] , [6] , active vibration detector - actuator systems [7] , and negative stiffness systems [8] .…”

“…This is especially important in modern microscopy, wherein reducing external vibrations is crucial for achieving high-resolution measurements [1] , [2] , but micro vibrations will also affect and potentially harm modern sensors [3] and sensitive machines [4] , [5] . To this end, solutions are implemented, with a wide variety of concepts such as air springs [5] , viscoelastic suspension [1] , [6] , active vibration detector - actuator systems [7] , and negative stiffness systems [8] . Many of the solutions have commercially available alternatives, yet they are often associated with high costs.…”

Vibration isolation characteristics and control strategy of parallel air spring system for transportation under abnormal road and eccentric load conditions

“…In order to overcome the wire rope isolator disadvantages and obtain a better vibration isolation effect, a parallel air spring vibration isolation system (PAVS) used to transporting precision equipment is proposed in our previous work. 11 The system is of simple structure, good lateral stability, and excellent vibration isolation performance. At present, in the field of vibration isolation, the air spring has been extensively studied.…”

“…Generally, during transportation the air spring has a small lateral vibration amplitude of (less than 1 cm), so the shear stiffness near the same working height can be approximated as a constant. The shear stiffness of air spring under different working heights is listed in Table 1 (from the authors’ previous paper 11 ), where the ratio is of the shear stiffness to the vertical stiffness. It can be concluded that both the working height and the initial air pressure affect the air spring shear stiffness.…”

“…The structure of the system 11 in SolidWorks is shown in Figure 4. The adapter plate are supported by four air springs and two dampers on the bottom plate.…”