Dear Lab Guy,

Vibrations from our process equipment are being transmitted through a lab bench with an IR spectrophotometer. Vibrations were measured at 33 Hz both in horizontal and vertical orientation. Amplitude are 15.4 micron in the vertical and 30.5 microns in the horizontal direction. The spectrophotometer weighs 10 lbs. (4.5 Kg). Would the Vibrasorb Premium mount work for this application?
Paul W

Hi Paul,

Either size of our Vibrasorb Premium Vibration Damping Mounts will work. The 4 corner neoprene feet will hold the heavy slab and absorb over 50% of you lab’s 33 Hz vibration. The end vibration will be about 16 Hz.

But please don’t stop there. Now that you have dampened your lab’s vibration, you need to further damp your IR Spec too. You say your Spec weighs only 10 pounds. That isn’t very heavy and lighter loads tend to feel vibration more. Without anything else I think your IR Spec would vibrate its way across the Vibrasorb slab!

Put some neoprene feet on the bottom of your IR Spec at each corner. And (this is important) the ‘softness’ of the feet (aka, the Durometer rating) has to be pretty soft because of the light weight of your instrument. If you put 4 super-hard rubber feet on the bottom of your IR Spec, I suspect it would still vibrate its way across the slab. When I say “soft feet”, I’m thinking like “pink eraser” soft, maybe even softer. Sticky feet will help also dampen your vibrations even more. By doing this I think your vibration will go down ≈ 96%, roughly 1-2 Hz. Sorbothane’s, found HERE, is one source for these feet. This website was of help to me in preparing your answer.

I hope I answered your question, but feel free to write back if you need anything more.
Lab Guy