Viscous damping apparatus for damping load cells of weighing devices

A viscous damping apparatus for damping mechanical shocks discharged on an object, comprising:

• a. a container having a circumferential sidewall and a bottom, the circumferential sidewall having an inner surface, and the bottom having a substantially flat upper surface, such that the inner surface of the circumferential sidewall and the substantially flat upper surface of the bottom form a reservoir;
• b. a round disc shaped damping member having a circumferential side surface and a substantially flat lower surface;
• c. the circumferential dimension of said damping member being smaller than the circumferential dimension of said reservoir;
• d. means for attaching said damping member to said object and suspending said damping member in said reservoir, such that said circumferential side surface of said damping member is clear from said inner surface of said circumferential sidewall of said container, but said substantially flat lower surface of said damping member is positioned parallel and very close to said substantially flat upper surface of said bottom of said container, which leaves a very narrow space between said substantially flat lower surface of said damping member and said substantially flat upper surface of said bottom of said container, the very narrow space being in the range of approximately 60 to 400 mils;
• and
• e. a body of viscous fluid contained in said reservoir and being adequate such that at least said substantially flat lower surface of said damping member is submerged thereby and subject to an extremely strong resistance force F which is calculated as ##EQU2## where K is a proportional constant, R is the radius of said substantially flat lower surface of said damping plate, .mu. is the viscosity of the viscous fluid, .delta..sub.0 is an initial distance between said substantially flat lower surface of said damping plate and said substantially flat upper surface of said bottom of said container, x is a momentary distance between a current location of said damping member and the initial position .delta..sub.0, and S is a speed of said damping member;
• f. whereby when a mechanical shock is discharged on said object and causes the object to vibrate, the vibration will be transferred to said damping member and cause said substantially flat lower surface of said damping member to move toward said substantially flat upper surface of said bottom of said container, so that said viscous fluid between said substantially flat lower surface of said damping member and said substantially flat upper surface of said bottom of said container is compressed and creates said extremely strong resistance force on said damping member that effectively damps the vibration of said object.