Anti-Vibration | Pressure Gauge | Budenberg

Anti-Vibration Viscous Damped Movement

When a gauge suffers from the effects of vibration or pulsations, the pointer vibrates very rapidly making it very difficult to make accurate stable readings. The main cause of this effect is installing a gauge close to a pump or any process that vibrates in normal operating conditions.

The key reason for fitting either a viscous damped Movement (VDM) or filling a case with glycerine is to overcome the effects of vibration and pulsation. It must be stated, however, that it does NOT replace a check screw or a pressure snubber for major pressure fluctuations or vibrations that are continuous and problematic, both of which can be supplied and fitted into the inlet of the gauge.

The Budenberg VDM is suitable for the following applications/industries

Oil & Gas Pressure Gauge	Chemical Pressure Gauge	Petrochemical Pressure Gauge	Power Generation Pressure Gauge
Water & Waste Water Pressure Gauge	Food & Beverage Pressure Gauge	Pharmaceutical Pressure Gauge	Refrigeration Pressure Gauge

Glycerine filling

A simple damping method is to fill the case with a viscous fluid such as glycerine to restrict the point from rapidly performing small fluctuations resulting in potentially inaccurate readings. One of the key problems with this is whilst the pointer is being restricted other parts of the gauge are still moving, hence the units suffer internal wear that may cause a premature failure of the instrument.

Disadvantages of glycerine-filled cases

The action of dragging the pointer through the viscous fluids adds a load to the pointer that can result in accuracy errors. The unit weight is effectively doubled, which puts extra strain on the installation, particularly on small scheduled pipes. Units are very messy during recalibration whereby they have to be emptied and there is a chance that the fluid can leak out which could then cause a Health & Safety hazard.

Benefits of Viscous Damped Movements

The damping effect is applied to the mechanism at two key operational points.
No loss or degradation of accuracy.
Easier to recalibrate with no messy fluids to remove/replace.
Unit weight is half that of a filled gauge.
Increased life cycle - Budenberg guarantees a unit fitted with a damped movement for 1,000,000 cycles whereas the guarantee for filled gauges is only 200,000.

Double Viscous Damped Movements

These movements have been around for quite a number of years but only in the past 10 years has the design been developed and improved to meet the harsher demands, particularly in the offshore oil and gas markets.

They are very similar to the standard gauge movements by they provide direct damping onto the two key elements of the movement via silicon oil-filled dashpots. These dashpots are located on the pinion and the quadrant arm and comprise of small white cylindrical containers filled with viscous silicon oil and internal paddle wheels that created resistance for the pointer from small fluctuations of pressure or vibration just as glycerine filling would. Furthermore, the quadrant nylon teeth provide a smooth action and preventing metal to metal wear between the pinion and the teeth.

The Pressure Gauge Anit-Vibration Viscous Damped Movement is suited to the following gauges

Standard Gauges from 63mm through to 250mm
Schaffer Diaphragm seal gauges
Chemical Seal Gauges
Temperature gauges - both Mercury & Gas Filled

To view all the information on the Budenberg VDM you can download the datasheet here

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