Summary

It has become increasingly evident in recent years that it is the damping unit which constitutes the weakpoint in offset printing, and that a fully satisfactory damping unit is not available on the market. Symptomatic for this situation are the numerous damping unit conversions that have been carried out on relatively new newspaper rotary presses, but that brought about only partial improvements. Therefore we considered that the time had come to tackle this problem systematically, with a view to obtaining new solutions unincumbered by previous models. We were especially fortunate to secure the services of Chemnitz Technical University for this task, as in the past it has gained a formidable reputation in the field of design systematics in mechanical engineering. It was not the aim of this project to develop the marketable prototype of a more efficiently functioning damping unit, but to map out new approaches for the supply industry to follow. In this, the Chemnitz research engineers have undoubtedly succeeded, especially with the electrostatically controlled aerosol damping unit with piezo oscillator described in this Special Report. We hope that the supply industry will act on the information contained herein, and suggest that users can accelerate the further development by their "enquiries", with reference to this Special Report.