Almost every United States service member, from an Air Force pilot soaring through the sky to a Navy submarine crewmember diving deep underwater, relies on advanced precision technology to complete their missions. With the success of military operations so deeply tied to this equipment, it must consistently function as intended.
Shock and vibration problems are common hurdles engineers encounter when working to ensure the reliability of military equipment. Hutchinson Aerospace and Industry specializes in creating engineered products such as vibration isolation mounts to address these challenges, not only for military applications but for other key industries as well.
While Hutchinson has thousands of turnkey designs available, the company’s expertise far exceeds a one-size-fits-all approach. Hutchinson’s custom system design experts work to provide highly specified solutions for customers’ unique shock and vibration, electromechanical system assemblies and electrification issues.
So, when one well-known defense company needed to solve a shock problem related to electronic control equipment for the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine, the Hutchinson team was mission ready. After conducting a robust system and design analysis, they helped create a modified solution that ultimately saved their customer a year’s worth of time and money.
Diagnosing the Problem
The first step Hutchinson took was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s shock challenges. The company’s engineers discovered their customer had been working with a competitor on a bulkhead-mounted enclosure with an internal circuit card deck. This deck had a limited amount of deflection space and had to remain within the customer’s maximum acceleration limit during shock events.
But when the customer performed 901E shock testing, the competitor’s isolator and proposed isolator configuration were not mitigating shock as needed. The system routinely transmitted high acceleration levels to the internal circuit card assembly during shock events, resulting in a test failure.
Given the limited time available to solve the problem, Hutchinson’s engineers quickly started analyzing the system and designing a solution.
A Custom Solution
Hutchinson’s team used in-house, proprietary software along with customer-provided shock input time history to conduct a thorough analysis of why the system had failed testing. With a system analysis and extensive materials knowledge in hand, the team determined that a custom solution would be necessary to achieve the customer’s desired results.
Hutchinson engineers concluded that a custom elastomer blend used in one of their company’s existing designs, as well as a completely different mounting system, was the key to passing shock testing. With the customer’s approval, Hutchinson created an elastomer formulation that was 50 percent stiffer than a standard elastomer.
Once Hutchinson’s team formulated the elastomer, they began using it in their existing isolator geometry to solve the shock problem. They also implemented stabilizer mounts in the upper corners of the system’s card deck to allow for streamlined motion control and lower transmitted acceleration.
Hutchinson was happy with the results—but before sending the customer samples of the isolator to use in trial testing, company engineers made sure they were confident in the solution they had developed. They validated the isolator’s performance in the Hutchinson Test Lab, and the custom product was out the door and on its way to the customer.
Passing the Test
As Hutchinson expected, the team’s isolator and stabilizer mount solution helped the system pass 901E shock testing. In fact, the isolator was successful in meeting the customer’s maximum acceleration levels using only half the allowable deflection space.
“Our engineering team worked extremely hard to solve this customer’s shock problem,” said Tim Russell, regional sales engineer for the northeast United States and defense aftermarket sales manager. “When we learned that our custom solution did the trick, we were excited, but not surprised. We had done so much testing up front to make sure it would meet the customer’s demands the first time around.”
Hutchinson’s Continuing Impact
Hutchinson started in 1943 to solve shock and vibration problems for the U.S. military. Eight decades later, the company is still making a big impact on the lives of uniformed men and women. (To read more about Hutchinson’s history, visit: www.hutchinsonai.com/intro-to-hutchinson/.)
Since World War II, many other critical business sectors have realized the positive potential of Hutchinson’s shock, noise and vibration solutions. Today, the company provides turnkey and custom products for applications in industries including rail, trucks and electric vehicles.
This shock-testing example demonstrates the Hutchinson team’s ability to quickly adapt their expertise in materials and system analysis to unlock custom solutions. From the very beginning of a relationship with a customer, Hutchinson works hand-in-hand to analyze any current system, run industry benchmarks, conduct modeling and develop prototypes through comprehensive prototyping and testing services.
Hutchinson engineers leverage full analytical and CAD capabilities and proprietary analytical tools to ensure they understand customer problems thoroughly before getting to work. The company is truly a value- added engineering partner that provides the finest, most cost-effective solutions to their shock, noise or vibration challenges.
The Hutchinson team is constantly working to innovate and improve the performance of their materials and has recently made advancements to heat resistance, fatigue life, damping, electrical conductivity and more. They continuously develop and test a wide range of structural elements and manufacturing processes so Hutchinson can deliver high-quality, repeatable products to customers every time.
If one of Hutchinson’s thousands of turnkey designs won’t solve your shock or vibration issue, the company is always ready and able to develop a custom solution so you can succeed. If you would like to learn more about how Hutchinson’s custom system design and analysis services or products can benefit you, reach out online at www.hutchinsonai.com/contact-information-and-locations/, or call (508) 417-7000.
