Damping enhancement of rubber dampers for high speed compact disk players

Rubber dampers are widely used to dissipate vibrations generated in machines and electronic equipments due to the excellent damping capacity of rubber. However, the effectiveness of the rubber damper is often limited because of the dependency of its damping characteristics on temperature and frequency. In this study, the damping and stiffness characteristics of the rubber damper for compact and digital video disk players were enhanced by inserting a solid core into the rubber damper with interference tolerance fit. The damping characteristics of the core-inserted rubber damper were investigated experimentally and numerically with respect to the interference tolerance, core roughness, rubber stiffness and damping and environmental temperature. From the experimental and numerical investigations, it was found that the core was effective both for the damping and stiffness enhancement of the damper. Using the results of the experimental and numerical investigations, the optimum design method for the core-inserted rubber damper was suggested.