Characterization of a water pump for drum-type washing machine by vibration power approach

●A new method to estimate maximum vibration power of the source is proposed.●This method is validated from the review on the other maximum vibration power estimating method.●This method is applied to the water pump for drum-type washing machine.●This method does not need the mobility which can be hard to obtain for the water pump.

Water pumps used in drum-type washing machines to save water are likely to make the washing process noisier than the one without those because the water pumps attached usually onto cabinet structure work as additional vibration and noise sources. In order to either counteract such vibration and noise problems by stiffness design of the cabinet structure or classify the water pumps from the view point of an acceptance test, characterization of the water pumps as excitation sources would be essential. In this paper, several methods to characterize a water pump as an excitation source are investigated. Measurements by traditional methods of blocked force and/or free velocity for a water pump of 35 W are presented. Two methods of vibration power suggested rather recently are reviewed. Then, another method of the vibration power is proposed. Estimations of the vibration power for the water pump operating on a beam structure are obtained and discussed comparatively.