Silly - sound damping with silly-putty?

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ckpurvis
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Silly - sound damping with silly-putty?

Post by ckpurvis » Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:35 pm

In another thread, koody mentioned filling the corrugations of some cardboard with sand to dampen noise from inside a case. This, for some reason, linked in my mind with a link I saw today where you can apparently purchase five pounds of Silly Putty from Crayola. Does anyone have any knowledge of using gels -- or Silly Putty -- as a sound damping material?

I would think that a gel would be a really good damper, but don't have any science to back up that hunch. Of course, some sort of gel is used to facilitate ultrasound readings, so I'd think that perhaps a gel has certain frequencies it transmits really well... Silly Putty at least is mainly polymers with about 17% silica. What about another gel? There's all sorts of questions like containment, how it would dampen vibration at different temperatures, et c. etc. Perhaps you could shift the frequency of the vibration out of your hearing range. I dunno.

Anybody got any ideas? Yes, I am aware it's a goofy, crackpot idea, but now I'm curious... :wink:

lenny
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Post by lenny » Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:55 pm

When heated silly putty will turn much more viscous and flow. We found this out the hard way when someone made a silly statue and stuck it on top of a small (10W) desk halogen lamp. I'm not sure if normal case temperatures will cause this to happen, but personally I don't want to take the chance.

Even at room temperature I think it's hard to make the silly putty stay in place on vertical or upside-down surfaces without another layer or material holding it in place.

I guess you can always use silly putty as earplugs, but I'm sure your ENT specialist will frown at that :-)

orionlion82
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Post by orionlion82 » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:16 pm

i used some SKANKY old gel insoles (not gooey gel, harder gell shaped in a grid pattern) between the bracket i made and wall when i mounted my dehumidifier in the basement, its tottaly inaudible right above it, and before the whole house shook and rattled, and buzzed... i have yet to apply that idea to my case... ive been tempted....

bchung
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Post by bchung » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:04 am

Pretty sure you don't need the silly putty to be hot for it to flow.

Its a viscoelastic shear thickening fluid. So if you throw it at a wall, it will bounce back at you like solid rubber. If you let it sit on a flat surface, it will spread to covered the surface, like a liquid.

Probably not the kind of material you are looking to use =)

HammerSandwich
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Post by HammerSandwich » Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:40 pm

I've used adhesive poster putty (i.e. Blu-tack) to mount fans successfully.

intx
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Post by intx » Wed Jul 14, 2004 10:59 pm

HammerSandwich wrote:I've used adhesive poster putty (i.e. Blu-tack) to mount fans successfully.
the viberations might knock it off though.

HammerSandwich
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Post by HammerSandwich » Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:54 am

Hasn't been a problem after 6+ months.

somebody
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Post by somebody » Thu Jul 15, 2004 3:54 pm

lenny wrote:When heated silly putty will turn much more viscous and flow.
Don't you mean less viscous?

jpsa
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Post by jpsa » Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:57 pm

Check here http://www.geocities.jp/numano3/page024.html this guy uses putty (plasticine, not silly-putty) to isolate noise from the HDD. Increadibly it help to cool it too! I'll try this with a busted hdd just to check temps/noise

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