Hydraulic oil, metal springs, and rubber are the three most commonly used media for buffering and vibration damping. Products based on these materials are generally referred to as shock absorbers or dampers.
Hydraulic dampers use hydraulic oil as the energy-absorbing medium. Under external load, energy is dissipated through viscous flow and frictional heat generation. However, hydraulic systems have long suffered from sealing reliability issues. Oil leakage, narrow operating temperature ranges, and high maintenance requirements have limited their broader adoption in industrial applications.
Metal spring dampers rely on the elastic deformation of springs to absorb energy through mechanical friction. While structurally simple, they are relatively heavy, prone to wear, and have limited service life due to fatigue and abrasion under repeated loading.
Rubber has a long history as a damping and buffering material. In conventional designs, rubber compounds containing curing agents and fillers are molded and vulcanized under heat and pressure into specific shapes. These products rely on the elasticity of vulcanized rubber to achieve shock absorption and vibration isolation. However, vulcanized rubber is essentially incompressible in volume, and its service life is limited by fatigue damage, permanent deformation, and aging. In practice, the maintenance cycle of these traditional dampers is typically only one to two years.
Industry Limitation: Why Traditional Damping Solutions Fall Short
Each of the three traditional damping systems has inherent structural limitations:
Hydraulic dampers suffer from leakage risk and temperature constraints
Metal spring dampers are heavy, wear quickly, and require frequent replacement
Vulcanized rubber dampers degrade due to fatigue, compression set, and aging
As industrial systems demand longer service life, wider operating temperature ranges, and lower maintenance costs, these limitations have become increasingly unacceptable.
Engineering Solution: Elastic Putty Based on Unvulcanized Rubber Viscoelasticity
Elastic putty is a new type of high-damping viscoelastic rubber material developed by utilizing the inherent properties of unvulcanized rubber—its viscoelastic behavior, flowability, and compressibility. By retaining these characteristics, elastic putty dampers overcome the fundamental weaknesses of hydraulic, spring-based, and vulcanized rubber dampers while combining their functional advantages.
Compared with conventional damping solutions, elastic putty dampers provide:
High energy dissipation efficiency through viscoelastic deformation;
Volume compressibility for improved shock absorption;
No leakage risk and no mechanical wear;
Stable performance under repeated loading cycles;
Significantly extended service life;
Maintenance intervals can reach up to 10 years, and the operating temperature range extends from –100 °C to +250 °C, making elastic putty dampers a critical solution for modern high-performance vibration control systems.
