Articles techniques et présentations

A model for material damping is presented in terms of internal friction and in terms of a variation of stiffness. In the latter case the idea is that the stiffness increases if elastic energy is stored and decreases if elastic energy is released. In case of a single mass spring system “stiffness” refers to the stiffness of the spring; in case of a continues object “stiffness” refers to the Young’s modules. The reason for this material damping model is that it simultaneously overcomes problems with linear viscous damping and with Coulomb damping. The reason for its interpretation as variation of stiffness instead of internal friction is that this substantially simplifies the mathematics.