Investigation of the Foam Filled Fluid Technology for Anti-Vibration Devices

In this study, Foam Filled Fluid (FFFluid) technology was investigated for the design of a novel vibration isolator, which is referred to as an FFFluid isolator. This technology relies on the utilisation of both the strain of foam capsules and fluid motion for reducing unwanted vibrations. Such an FFFluid isolator basically consists of compressible elastic particles of foam, mixed with an incompressible fluid while this mixture is contained in a controlled volume. When the FFFluid isolator is affected by vibrations, energy is absorbed due to the elastic strain of the foam. As the foam strain also enables movement of the fluid, this contributes to further energy absorption due swirling and the viscous effect of the fluid. The packaging could also contribute to attenuate vibration through the generated friction between the piston and the cylinder used to contain the FFFluid. Former studies showed that promising performances in reducing unwanted forces can be achieved with shock absorbing devices using the FFFluid technology. Such studies also highlighted the importance of defining key parameters of FFFluid devices properly. The present study was focused on characterising the FFFluid technology for vibration isolation. The performance of the system was determined based on experimental data in order to assess the stiffness and damping coefficients of the developed device.