Front Loading Machine Vibration

[MRLOWVIBE]

I work for a vibration consulting company, and we find solutions to various vibration problems in the industry, some complex some very simple. I get about 15-20 inquiries a month from people that deal with extreme vibration from front loading washing machine installed in their house. As simple as this sound I still haven't found a solution for this problem. Can anybody help?

 

[Tmoose]

Would the problems most likely be on dryers non-ground slab installations?

The radial forces from a horizontal shaft machine would have some up and down forces, where a vertical shaft machine would not. With excellent isolation the unbalance forces would be reduced by over 90%, but 90% of a lot is still something.

As floor design allows for deflections of between 0 and span/200 or 300, the static deflection is on the order of 0 - .7 inches, with a resulting resonant frequency of between 10,000 rpm and 224 rpm. The chances that the dryer drum speed are in that range are pretty good, so the floor may be just waiting for an excuse to amplify the vibration more than 30 X.

 

[spargher]

I saw many times that high vibration problem on washing machine was due to a bad installation.
For example, most machines need the drum dampener to be unlocked after installation and a lot of people do not read the instructions and just do not unlock it
It may seem silly but it's real

Greets
Piter

 

[Rob45]

And don't forget leveling the feet.

Have you tried vibration isolating pads under the feet?

One other possible solution would be to mount the washing machine on a very large mass, for example a steel plate, with the mass isolated from the floor.

 

[MikeyP]

Talking of reading (and obeying) the instructions, how many people actually weigh their wash load to ensure they are not overloading the machine. Overloading prevents the load from being evenly distributed around the drum during the spin-cycle and can cause pretty big out-of-balance forces.

M

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Dr Michael F Platten