73. TAYLOR DEVICES HERMETIC DAMPERS DESCRIPTION, APPLICATIONS, AND DESIGN
This hermetically sealed damper was developed during the 1980’s for use space platforms. NASA and the U.S. military had experienced difficulties over the years with all types of oil filled products in space. Conventional sliding surfaces that were sealed acceptably on earth proved unacceptable for spacecraft use. Even the tiniest amount of fluid seepage past conventional seals turns into a dense fog in a vacuum, contaminating optics and electronic systems. Taylor Devices’ solution was to develop a damper that uses a flexural seal – thus sealing by non-sliding methods. The seal itself was a so called metal bellows made by laser welding thin discs of stainless steel into a bellows configuration. This paper describes the design and construction of the Taylor Devices Hermetically Sealed Damper.