Method and apparatus for attenuating sound from vibratory screening machines

1. A method of attenuating the sound emanating from a bank of a plurality of vibrating screens of a plurality of vibratory screening machines operating simultaneously comprising the steps of detecting, using an accelerometer, a motion of a respective vibrating screen for each of said machines to determine the phase of each of the machines, and causing certain of said vibrating screens to operate sufficiently out of phase with other of said vibrating screens to attenuate the sound emanating from said bank of vibrating screens.

2. A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said plurality of machines comprise at least four machines, and wherein two of said machines operate substantially 180° out of phase with the other two machines.

3. A method as set forth in claim 1 wherein said step of determining the phase of each machine comprises the steps of providing a master pulse of known phase and frequency, and comparing the phase and frequency of each of said vibrating screens to said known phase and frequency of said master pulse.

4. A method as set forth in claim 3 wherein said step of causing certain of said vibrating screens to operate sufficiently out-of-phase with other of said vibrating screens includes the step of varying the speed of vibration of certain of said vibrating screens.

5. A method as set forth in claim 4 including the step of displaying the phase of each of said vibrating screens.

6. A method of attenuating the sound emanating from a bank of a plurality of vibrating screens of a plurality of vibrating screening machines comprising the steps of providing a master pulse of known phase and frequency, detecting, using an accelerometer, a motion of a respective vibrating screen for each of said machines to determine the phase of each of the machines, comparing the phase and frequency of the plurality of vibrating screens with said known phase and frequency of said master pulse, and adjusting the phase and frequency of said bank of plurality of vibrating screens so that the waveforms produced thereby tend to cancel each other.

7. A method as set forth in claim 6 wherein said step of comparing said phase and frequency of said master pulse with said phase and frequency of each vibrating screen results in producing a voltage output which is representative of the desired phase and the actual phase which is used to effect corrections of the phase relative to the master pulse.

8. An apparatus for attenuating sound emanating from a bank of a plurality of vibrating screens of a plurality of vibratory screening machines operating simultaneously, comprising:

an accelerator for detecting a motion of a respective vibrating screen for each of said machines to determine the phase of each of the machines; and,

means for causing certain of said vibrating screens to operate sufficiently out of phase with other of said vibrating screens to attenuate the sound emanating from said bank of vibrating screens.

9. An apparatus for attenuating sound emanating from a bank of a plurality of vibrating screens of a plurality of vibrating screening machines, comprising:

means for providing a master pulse of known phase and frequency;

an accelerator for detecting a motion of a respective vibrating screen for each of said machines to determine the phase of each of the machines;

means for comparing the phase and frequency of the plurality of vibrating screens with said known phase and frequency of said master pulse; and,

means for adjusting the phase and frequency of said bank of plurality of vibrating screens so that the waveforms produced thereby tend to cancel each other.