The development of the new vibration isolation bed used for an ambulance

Abstract

In Japan, the number of the sick and wounded transported by ambulances and their transport time are increasing year by year. Traveling vibration caused by transportation of a ambulance is transmitted to the sick and wounded, and may cause sickness and disease deterioration. Current ambulances are equipped with a vibration isolation bed, which is a vibration reduction device, as a measure against that vibration. I did a vibration experiment of the existing vibration isolation bed. As a result, the vibration isolation bed reduced the head vibration but not the leg vibration. The purpose of this research is to manufacture a new type of vibration isolation bed using high damping material at present research stage. The high damping material pipe is made by braiding glass fiber on a core material similar to polystyrene foam, and impregnating the resin from above. When the pipe deforms in a bending direction, the fibers rub against each other, converting the kinetic energy of vibration into thermal energy and damping the vibration. In vibration experiments assuming that the pipe is used as a suspended ceiling, the pipe showed a high damping factor. A prototype of a vibration isolation bed using a pipe was created. We carried out a loading test on one pipe to find the Young's modulus of the pipe. As a result of the experiment, it was found that the pipe can bear a weight of up to 8 kg. It was found that the number of required pipes was 182, assuming that it was used as a vibration isolation bed. Therefore, it is thought that this pipe is not suitable for the vibration isolation bed.