TopLine Granted Patent for Quick Response Vibration Damping

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TopLine Corporation has been granted US Patent 10,021,779 for an apparatus and system for attaining a quick response to vibration damping of printed circuit boards (PCB) or other planar surfaces. The patent covers the use of a single spherical tungsten (or other material) ball in a single or plurality of sealed spherical chambers in a Particle Impact Damper (PID). Vibration damping of PC board assemblies increases the life of the system for applications in harsh environments.

“The single spherical ball is not weighed down, thus providing unrestricted freedom for the ball to quickly respond at the first occurrence of excessive vibrational acceleration of 1G,” said Martin Hart, CEO of TopLine Corporation.

The structure of a single spherical particle within a sealed spherical chamber provides a path of minimum distance for the ball to travel before colliding with the ceiling or side walls of the PID chamber. A plurality of spherical chambers can be arranged in a variety of patterns within the PID housing as desired.

The PID housing can be any shape such as a cube, a rectangle, a cylinder, a sphere, a triangular tetrahedron, polygon, toroid or in any combination of shapes. TopLine holds several patents in the field of particle dampers.

About Particle Impact Dampers (PID)

Particle Impact Dampers (PID) reduce harmful vibration and extend hardware life and reliability. PID is a COTS commercially-available standard solution, suitable for retrofitting and hardening heritage hardware in the field. PIDs can be solder attached like ordinary components or attached to the board using permanent epoxy adhesive. TopLine’s Particle Impact Dampers were invented at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. TopLine has created a web site with a 2-minute YouTube video showing how the PID works; Please click here.

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