Damping

In physical systems, damping is the loss of energy of an oscillating system by dissipation. Damping is an influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing or preventing its oscillation. Examples of damping include viscous damping in a fluid (see viscous drag), surface friction, radiation, resistance in electronic oscillators, and absorption and scattering of light in optical oscillators. Damping not based on energy loss can be important in other oscillating systems such as those that occur in biological systems and bikes (ex. Suspension (mechanics)). Damping is not to be confused with friction, which is a type of dissipative force acting on a system. Friction can cause or be a factor of damping.

Many systems exhibit oscillatory behavior when they are disturbed from their position of static equilibrium. A mass suspended from a spring, for example, might, if pulled and released, bounce up and down. On each bounce, the system tends to return to its equilibrium position, but overshoots it. Sometimes losses (e.g. frictional) damp the system and can cause the oscillations to gradually decay in amplitude towards zero or attenuate.

The damping ratio is a dimensionless measure, amongst other measures, that characterises how damped a system is. It is denoted by ζ ("zeta") and varies from undamped (ζ = 0), underdamped (ζ < 1) through critically damped (ζ = 1) to overdamped (ζ > 1).

The behaviour of oscillating systems is often of interest in a diverse range of disciplines that include control engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, structural engineering, and electrical engineering. The physical quantity that is oscillating varies greatly, and could be the swaying of a tall building in the wind, or the speed of an electric motor, but a normalised, or non-dimensionalised approach can be convenient in describing common aspects of behavior.

Depending on the amount of damping present, a system exhibits different oscillatory behaviors and speeds.

A damped sine wave or damped sinusoid is a sinusoidal function whose amplitude approaches zero as time increases. It corresponds to the underdamped case of damped second-order systems, or underdamped second-order differential equations. Damped sine waves are commonly seen in science and engineering, wherever a harmonic oscillator is losing energy faster than it is being supplied. A true sine wave starting at time = 0 begins at the origin (amplitude = 0). A cosine wave begins at its maximum value due to its phase difference from the sine wave. A given sinusoidal waveform may be of intermediate phase, having both sine and cosine components. The term "damped sine wave" describes all such damped waveforms, whatever their initial phase.

The most common form of damping, which is usually assumed, is the form found in linear systems. This form is exponential damping, in which the outer envelope of the successive peaks is an exponential decay curve. That is, when the maximum points of each successive curve are connected, the result resembles an exponential decay function. The general equation for an exponentially damped sinusoid may be represented as: $${\displaystyle y(t)=Ae^{-\lambda t}\cos(\omega t-\varphi )}$$ where:

Other important parameters include: