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Metal Bellows Designs:
Vibrations
While the stainless steel
construction of a FlexCom metal bellows lends a great
deal of durability and load tolerance to the
expansion joint,
it has a significant drawback: a
metal expansion joint
transmits vibration much more readily than the
fabric joints
designed for low pressure gas transfer applications. If not
adequately isolated along the ductwork, vibrations can become a
serious problem by subjecting expensive components to
unnecessary wear and tear.
Vibrations can be caused by many things. In addition to normal
component operation, vibrations can be caused and transmitted
along your ductwork or piping by :
● Normal liquid or gas flow dynamics
● Loose bolts or other parts
● Pipe or duct strain caused by thermal expansion
● Damaged or failing components
● External forces, including harmonic vibrations
● Flaws in the original application design
Vibrations can represent a serious engineering problem to an
efficient industrial application. Left unmanaged, steady
vibrations transmitted along your ductwork over time will
decrease the predictability of your application, reduce
operating efficiency, damage components and ultimately raise the
system's operating and maintenance costs.
Typically, expansion joints -
metal or
fabric - are
used to isolate vibrations along piping and ductwork. In
designing a custom metal bellows, FlexCom's engineers
reduce the joint's ability to transmit vibration by reducing the
joint's stiffness, making it more flexible and elastic - and so,
more able to absorb sizeable forces without passing them along
to other components. As each FlexCom metal bellows is
custom designed for the specific load requirements of each
unique customer application, our engineers employ several design
options for increasing vibration isolation without sacrificing
load tolerance, thrust resistance or joint reliability.
In addition to vibration isolation, every application requires a
unique and specific balance of thermal and pressure load
tolerances, as well as movement compensation thresholds. For
this reason, we highly recommend using only custom designed
expansion joints: engineered for your specific application,
carefully balanced to meet your application's specific needs.
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