Shaft Coupling Alignment Device with Elastomeric Vibration Damping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing shaft couplings fail to effectively tolerate misalignment and rotational vibrations between rotatable shafts, leading to angular distortion, bearing wear, and costly repairs.
Innovation Solution
A free-floating coupling device with circular hubs, a power ring, and elastically deformable bushings with a hard rubber inner layer and softer rubber outer layer, along with truncated spherical coupling pins, allows for flexibility and reduces torsional vibration by using a wavy, perforated cylindrical spring sleeve between the bushing layers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional rigid couplings are used to connect shafts, then structural stability is maintained, but shaft misalignment causes angular distortion and bearing wear
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs flexible membrane elements and elastomeric materials in the coupling design, allowing the coupling to accommodate shaft misalignment through elastic deformation. The flexible membrane acts as a compliant element that absorbs angular distortion without transmitting harmful forces to the bearings, thereby maintaining reliability while tolerating misalignment.
Solution Approach 2:
The coupling design incorporates parameters such as material durometer (hardness), membrane geometry, and element configuration that can be adjusted to optimize performance. By changing these parameters, the coupling can be tailored to specific misalignment conditions while maintaining structural stability and protecting against bearing wear.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If flexible coupling elements are used to tolerate misalignment, then bearing wear is reduced, but torsional vibration is transmitted across the coupling
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling design incorporates pre-tensioned elements and pre-compressed elastomeric components that are prepared in advance to absorb vibrations. The membrane elements are pre-stressed during assembly to create a damping effect that reduces torsional vibration transmission before the coupling is put into operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent converts the potentially harmful torsional vibrations into beneficial damping effects through the use of elastomeric materials and flexible membranes. These elements are designed to deform under vibrational loads, absorbing energy and converting mechanical vibration into heat through internal friction, thereby reducing vibration transmission while still protecting bearings from misalignment wear.
3Reliability
If compression springs are used in the coupling, then misalignment tolerance is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple functions into integrated components. The flexible membrane elements serve both as structural connectors and as misalignment compensators, eliminating the need for separate spring elements in many designs. The elastomeric materials provide both structural support and vibration damping in a single component, reducing overall complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The use of flexible membranes and thin elastomeric films provides misalignment tolerance through their inherent compliance, replacing complex spring mechanisms with simpler, more elegant flexible structures that achieve the same function with fewer parts and less assembly complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The coupling device reduces torsional vibration and extends the life of the coupling by allowing for misalignment tolerance, minimizing wear, and maintaining proper shaft rotation, while accommodating varying sizes and applications with angular misalignment up to 8 degrees.
Implementation Method 1
elastically deformable bushings with a hard rubber inner layer and softer rubber outer layer, allows for flexibility and reduces torsional vibration
Implementation Method 2
wavy, perforated cylindrical spring sleeve between the bushing layers
Data Source
AI summary
A coupling for attaching a pair of longitudinally aligned rotatable shafts. It has a pair of circular hubs having a bore through a central axis. A shaft is fixed within each bore. A circular power ring is positioned between the hubs. Either the hubs or the power ring have circular apertures through and spaced around each hub and a hollow bushing positioned in each circular aperture. The other of the hubs or the power ring has mating coupling pins extending outwardly mounted within a corresponding one of the hollow bushings. Preferably an end of the coupling pins mating with the bushings have a generally truncated spherical, bulbous configuration with an outside diameter about 5% to about 25% greater than an outside diameter of its opposite end. Preferably elastically deformable, solid cylindrical spacers are attached to, and projecting between each circular hub and the circular power ring.