Among the unusual applications I have seen over the years, one in particular sticks in my mind because it is extremely practical in keeping production line productivity high.  A client had a production line that was used in a critical painting operation. The line had to run smoothly yet be safe and also not be self destructive.  If the chain driven line had too abrupt of a jam these pendulum microswitch toggles would release the switch. They were very sensitive so EVERY time there was slight jarring the switch would flip and stop the line. What a production nightmare! Now the jarring was not bad enough to cause a paint defect but the stopping of the line would cause a defect by leaving a part in the paint spray path too long or too short depending on the cause. So we used a rotary viscous damper on the microswitch actuator. The damper was tuned to let slight jarring  not interrupt the safety switch. Only at a certain amplitude would activate the actuator enough to stop the line. This prevented the line from stopping for every little bump in the road. I never saw this type of application for a damper but here it was! You never stop learning. Bring your production line issues to us at www.mmtech.us. We may have a solution for you.