Experiment Investigate on the Effectiveness of Flexible Pipes to Isolate Sea-Water Pump Generated Vibration

Abstract

Vibration control is important in maintaining the silence of the underwater vehicle. Among the many methods of vibration control, isolation is by far the most efficient approach. However, as one of the major vibration sources in underwater vehicle, the vibration isolation of the sea-water pump has not been well explored. The sea-water pipe is the primary vibration transmit path from the sea-water pump to the housing. In order to realize the vibration isolation of the sea-water pump, the sea-water pipe must have certain flexibility and damping. In this study, scaled model tests were carried out to investigate the isolation effectiveness of flexible pipes in isolated sea-water pump. Specifically, three types of flexible pipes, i.e., double layer metal bellows (DLMB), rubber pipes (RP) and bellows coated rubber (BCR) were designed and tested. Tests were carried out under the operation rotate speeds of the sea-water pump. Our results show that compared with single layer metal bellows (SLMB), the isolation effectiveness of DLMB and BCR were significant and stable in high frequency regions. The optimal pipe can be chosen for different vibration reduction requirements in practical engineering.

A Review of the Development and Research Status of Symmetrical Diaphragm Pumps

“…Yang et al [69] conducted a scale model test and considered four types of pipelines: SLMB (single-layer metal bellows), DLMB (double-layer metal bellows), BCR (bellowscoated rubber), and RP (rubber pipe), as shown in Figure 10. The results of Figures 11 and 12 show that, compared with SLMB, DLMB and BCR have significant and stable isolation Xu et al [68] proposed a diagnostic method based on multi-domain features and KELM (kernel extreme learning machine), which solved the problem of difficult classification of check valve fault states.…”

“…Yang et al [69] conducted a scale model test and considered four types of pipelines: SLMB (single-layer metal bellows), DLMB (double-layer metal bellows), BCR (bellowscoated rubber), and RP (rubber pipe), as shown in Figure 10. The results of Figures 11 and 12 show that, compared with SLMB, DLMB and BCR have significant and stable isolation effects in the high-frequency region, and the shock-absorbing frequency of BCR is slightly higher than that of DLMB.…”

Flexibility Analysis and Experimental Design of Dual-Chamber Bellows Isolator for Low-Frequency Damping Performance

“…According to different materials, common bellows can be divided into metal bellows and rubber bellows [6]. Metal bellows have good anisotropy and noise reduction performance, and can expand irregularly and absorb energy [7]. Compared with traditional vibration damping devices, metal bellows are also light in weight, so they can be widely used in aerospace, pipeline system, agriculture and other fields [8], [9].…”

“…Similarly, when controlling devices such as manipulators, flexible bellows are used to better solve the problem of excessive displacement in order to better reduce the impact of oscillation on working accuracy. [21][22][23] Yang et al [24] compared double-layer metal, rubber, and coated rubber bellows' vibration control in seawater. Flexible bellows isolators can link the mechanical arm and claw to control movement and reduce robot end vibration.…”

Vibration Analysis and Isolator Component Design of the Power System in an Autonomous Underwater Glider

“…Song et al 18 designed a periodic vibration isolator on the underwater vehicle propulsion shaft to reduce the vibration and acoustic transmission problems. Yang et al 19 designed a flexible vibration isolation for the seawater pipe of the underwater vehicle and built a test platform to verify the vibration isola- tion performance of the flexible pipe. Zhao et al 20 studied the application of three-dimensional acoustic crystal in an underwater anechoic coating.…”