RADIATION CURED ELASTOMERS FOR SHOCK AND NOISE REDUCTION APPLICATIONS

1The United States military, especially the U.S. Navy, relies on a vast array of systems that require vibration damping shocks and mounts. Over the year, the increasingly severe demands of modern naval warfare have produced increasingly quiet systems. Unfortunately, the materials used for the manufacture of elastomeric vibration damping and shock mounts have remained essentially unchanged. Surprisingly, one of the simplest parts of a naval vessel, a simple rubber shock mount, is one of the most unreliable, and be (relative to its purchase price) one of the most expensive to replace. The loss of a vibration shock mount's damping characteristics can result in the reduction in the vessels acoustics, and ultimatly, the loss of the vessel to the fleet when in for repair. New radiation cured elastomers offer low-cost method for the production of noise and shock damping products with exceptional resistance to aging, crack initiation, and crack growth.