Poly Flex Promises Good Vibrations at seawork

For many years some vessel designers have been reluctant to make use of resilient mountings in order to avoid a floppy or bouncy installation. Bolting engines solidly to the engine bed was believed to be the only way to ensure engines would not fly off their mountings.

However, significant advances in design and materials technology has coincided with a growing customer demand for ‘vibration free’ vessels.

While no vessel can ever be ‘vibration free’, the vibration generated in the engine can be controlled and isolated to a comfortable level.

Engine mounts must perform the triple functions of isolating vibration from the structure of the vessel, transferring the thrust produced by the propeller to the structure of the vessel, and maintaining the correct position of the engine under inertial loads due to sea conditions. These can only be achieved with the use of properly designed engine mounts specially engineered for each engine and gearbox installation.

The Australian company Poly Flex achieved this by developing an engineering grade heat cured polymer alloy.

Originally developed to provide wear strips for machinery, Polenite has seen its applications extended to provide a series of rudder bearing and seal systems as well as the engine mounts and couplings. The dry lubricant impregnated polymer offers low water swell, easy machining and extreme durability. It is resilient to oil and will not degrade in the event of fuel spillage.

Poly Flex is now into its 23rd year of manufacturing engineered polymer anti-vibration engine mounting systems and flexible disc couplings. The years of experience have yielded over 1,600 models of engine mounts ranging from 10kg to 2,000kg working load and 200 flexible disc couplings from 10hp to 2,500hp ratings. These suit the products of all major engine, generator and gearbox suppliers.

There are, for example, direct replacement mounts and couplings for the complete Yanmar engine range.

Additionally, as Poly Flex operates its own moulding division to accompany its manufacturing business, the majority of products are stock lines and urgent orders can be manufactured and dispatched worldwide within 48 to 72 hours.

Poly Flex has recently completed a new testing facility which will result in DNV Type Approval being granted this year.

This will enable even more engine builders to specify Poly Flex products as original equipment.

MJ Information No: 18341