Application of Impact Damping to Rotary Printing Equipment

Abstract

This paper describes the theoretical and experimental work leading to the application of an impact damper to the image carrying cylinder of a web-fed printing press. The need for such a device arises from the desire to overcome a traditional limit on the operating speed of a press of this kind. This limit is the onset of an unacceptable anomaly in the finished print known as streaking. Streaking is caused by vibratory bending of the image carrying cylinders in a direction perpendicular to their axis of rotation. The selection of design parameters for an impact damper intended to reduce these vibrations was the objective of the study reported herein.