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Can someone explain to me how a critically damped system would converge faster when in fact it is multiplied by t in part of the solution? Since the over-damped system is a decaying exponential times a constant it would decay faster than the exponential time a positivally growing constant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.84.196.167 ( talk) 01:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
So an underdamped door-closer will "bounce" on the way to being closed? Should mention this to complete the analogy. jyavner 21:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the door-closer analogy is a bit confusing. A door-closer's motion is only described by a second-order differential equation if there is a spring involved, as well as the mass and damper. If it's just a mass and damper, then it can be described by a first-order differential equation and it cannot be described as over-, critically-, or under-damped. Perhaps a spring should be mentioned in these analogies? Dkraemer1 19:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it's probably a good idea to alter the current gif-file a bit, in a way that the system stays in 'rest' a little bit longer'. Just add a frame or 2, 3 with the end of the simulation I purpose. Right now, the thing doesn't seem to stop at the end of the simulation. Anyone able to alter this? -- Flekkie ( talk) 21:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Is it worth including that over-damping is 'aperiodic' motion? Given the necessary initial conditions the motion can pass through the equilibrium position once (but only once), i.e. start off with a positive displacement, pass through zero, then converge to zero from the negative side. It doesn't always look like exponential decay as in the diagram. (source: 'Vibrations and Waves in Physics', Third Edition, Iain G. Main) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.123.249 ( talk) 11:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
I've replaced Image:Springdampermass.png with Image:Mass-Spring-Damper.png, which I originally drew for Nondimensionalization. I also changed the symbol used for the damping constant in the article from R to B to match the image. Of course, it would be easy to create a variant of the image with a different symbol and without the external force arrow, but I feel it looks good enough as it is. If you disagree, please say so (or just revert me, it's no big deal). — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 23:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Move from my talk-- Light current 21:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that the figure looks great, but it is a little bit confusing on one point: x should be defined as positive in one direction. Showing x going both ways makes it difficult to figure out the direction of the spring and damping forces. Dkraemer1 19:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I notice you (and 72.132.7.159, which I assume is your IP address) have been editing Damping to change the notation used in the article, in particular changing the sigmas used to denote the damping factor to zetas (or, in earlier edits, to alphas). While I appreciate your attempts to improve the article, plase note the following:
In general, it's better to discuss changes like this on the talk page first before making them. That way, we can choose a consistent notation that all editors find appropriate and avoid needless back-and-forth edit warring. It also makes it less likely for someone to mistake your edits for sneaky vandalism. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 20:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
72.132.7.159 appears to be in agreement with me and has been changing the sigmas to zetas. But he didnt change them all. I changed the ones he missed. You reverted all his recent changes to the page. So Im not quite sure where we are now. I think we need to revert to a much earlier version around 18 May and go from there. What do you think?-- Light current 01:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes thanks for taking the time to do that 8-). Ive copied it from your sub page now and it is correct IMO and consistent. One thing that is bothering me tho' is the introduction of the 'damping ratio' early on and its inclusion in the system description. THis tends to confuse the issue. The equation is usually quoted using the damping factor only. I intend to change this soon. THanks for your help. 8-)-- Light current 14:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that using zeta, as in , is the way to go. That is what appears in the article currently, written as . However, the name for this parameter is given as the "damping factor". This is not the standard in engineering literature, from what I've seen. It should be called the "damping ratio". A quick look at the Wikipedia entries for damping ratio and damping factor confirms this conclusion. Dkraemer1 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I want to propose a constant change for the damping coefficient from capital B to a lower case c. This change would put the article in line with the standard notation taken in most engineering programs. Also, pertaining to the zeta conversation, zeta is the appropriate symbol as far as I've ever seen in all of my engineering courses and textbooks. -- Barkman 17:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I dont think these pics are particularly helpful (sorry) . There are some better ones you could use over at tuned circuit I think! 8-)-- Light current 00:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
-- Mysteryegg 20:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
There is one specific problem with the diagram with the red, green, and blue lines comparing under-, over-, and critical damping. It shows the critical damping case with the greatest initial negative gradient, whereas in fact it should be the under-damped case. The less damping, the faster the system initially heads toward the point of stability: the problem of course is that if insufficiently damped it overshoots. A replacement diagram would be good but unfortunately I didd't see anything useful at tuned circuit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.229.11.118 ( talk) 16:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Hey what's the deal? I added an explaination about the differences between dampening and damping since it is a very common mistake and someone wantonly obliterated it. dq 23:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you watch any of the Star Treks? They get it wrong all the time. Most engineers get it wrong too if they are not vibration experts. dq 02:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Unfortuneately, not everyone is like you. Maybe we need a third party is this discussion? dq 16:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Agree that this should be in the article. I wish people would stop removing stuff like this.
Dampening is "To deaden, restrain, or depress" while damping is "The capacity built into a mechanical or electrical device to prevent excessive correction and the resulting instability or oscillatory conditions." See also dampening, dampening effect. — Omegatron 21:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Both terms are gerunds. Their roots, Dampen and Damp, have several transitive and intransitive definitions. Among the "control/limit" definitions, dampen and damp can seem very similar by denotation. The gerunds, however, are not usually used in the same connotation. Only damping can relate to control theory or oscillations. In other words, if you damp a second order system to keep it within stable parameters, you are dealing with its damping, which is now a term describing a field of study. Dampening is not used in its gerund form as often and more often relates to suppressing abstract concepts, like dampening a political movement. Webster uses "The heat dampened our spirits" as an example.
You might look at the words' origins to confirm this, but you might suggest that all physical properties are damped and abstract properties are dampened. However, I'm more inclined to believe that damping requires indirectly affecting oscillations, etc. by controlling some damping factor that it depends on. Therefore dampen is used for taking direct actions to "silence" the direct object where there is no differential equation to describe the situation. This could justify musicians' use of dampening when they just use their hands to dampen the sound. Supporting the physical/abstract theory, for example, you might damp a fire, or use "inertial dampers" in Star Trek, but dampen a mood. The latter theory might be supported by the same examples saying that you are limiting the oxygen factor that fire needs or increasing the stiffness parameter in a spring, while there is no differential equation and thus no damping ratio to describe direct intervention.
My conclusion is: damping is a mathematical concept describing a means of affecting some natural response with a constant damping factor, and dampening is a direct intervension of the scope of some concept with no defined consistant damping factor.-- Mysteryegg 20:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone say why this parameter has been introduced? It just seems to complicate the picture! I mean what does it represent anyway? 8-(-- Light current 21:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
THe page history shows that it is not I who has been tinkering with the equations (lately).
THe introduction of gamma is confusing and uneccesary to the explanation (especially when it doesnt represent anything tangible). I have never seen gamma quoted in these sorts of equations before and I suggest removal to simplify page. 8-|-- Light current 09:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Please add appropriate units for variables and constants - discussion of physics/mechanics topics is greatly improved by including a consistent set of units.
In answer to jyavner, who inquired regarding a possible bounce for an underdamped closer: yes, an underdamped closer would "want to" bounce, because it would reach the closed position with nonzero velocity. It is also worth noting that a critically damped closer might suffer a bounce as well, if the person gave the door a sufficiently large initial shove (i.e., a sufficiently large initial velocity in the "closing" direction). Critical damping does not imply that there is no crossing through the equilibrium state; whether the static equilibrium position is passed or not depends on the initial conditions. Furthermore, though I do not design these devices, I strongly suspect that that they are designed to be (highly) overdamped rather than critically damped for precisely this reason - a sufficiently large amount of damping makes it impossible for a person to slam the door. All closers in my experience appear to exhibit this behavior. (I am not including those two-way swinging doors between restaurant dining rooms and kitchens, which are clearly underdamped, and have little or no intentionally included damping.)
In response to Dkraemer1, who brought up the subject of springs and the order of the ODE involved, the door closer itself must contain a spring element. If there were no spring, the door would never move on its own, and it would never "seek" the closed position. The closer+door system is indeed, therefore, a second-order mass-spring-damper system. It may also be worth noting that the spring is not at its equilibrium position when the door is closed; rather, it is somewhat deflected, so that the door is held in its closed position with some (nonzero) force.
The most important thing that needs to be said (and currently isn't) regarding the critical damping case is that it gives the fastest possible return to a state of equilibrium.
For all of these reasons, I propose removing all mention of door closers in connection with critical damping and inserting language making clear that critical damping produces a system with the fastest possible return to a state of equilibrium. Tpower27 21:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I made a full revision to this article, added some more formulation and a picture comparing the different system behaviors. I feel that there is no need for a separate article for Damping ratio, as there are duplicate explanations and the understanding of the damping ratio should be favored by including it in the [[Damping] article. So, I propose to merge Damping ratio to Damping. - Nmnogueira 11:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Damping, and most classic sciences are not expanding in the same manner. It's true that there are not wiki entries for every scientific property, and not all have been adequately written in the wiki world. However, the wiki appropriate info for the majority of sciences is well known, and can be found by scanning section headers in physics/engineering/science textbooks. It is more acceptable for cutting edge technologies, such as nano-tech to be split into multiple entries...not damping however.
Lastly, if you are going to merge "damping constant" into damping, you also need to merge "Coulomb damping", "Shock absorber", & "Dashpot" into damping. If there is ever a "viscous damping" wiki created, that needs to go into damping as well. But if you are going to merge these together, it should be done across the board...i.e, "Torsional vibration" needs to be merged into "Vibration", because they have virtually the same relations and equations...but instead of mass for linear, you have moment of inertia for torsional, and instead of x for linear, you have θ for torsional As an engineering student, i would much rather look at one entry for "damping," and see "all" there is to do with damping in one article. of course each section would be titled, and if i searched for something specific, like "damped natural frequency", "damping" would still come up as a result if it is included in the damping article. That would be much better then flipping through multiple wiki entries on very similar topics... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheeto81 ( talk • contribs)
re: "An automobile suspension has a damping near critical damping (slightly higher for "hard" suspensions and slightly less for "soft" ones)"
This statement is a touch misleading. Automobile suspension damping ranges from approximately 0.25 for passenger vehicles (ride softness) to 0.7 and higher for racecars (all-out handling). The relationship between ride quality (low damping ratio) vs. handling (high damping ratio) is relatively well studied. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.82.18.94 ( talk) 20:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
strongly OPPOSE merger.....Practically the people search both the stuffs for different purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.175.82.248 ( talk) 08:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the Q factor and the damping ratio are 2 ways to measure basically the same thing (see Q factor for the simple equation between them). I think they should be merged into the same article. Since it looks like "damping ratio" is going to be merged into this "damping" article (see above), I guess Q factor should (sooner or later) be merged in as well. -- 75.19.73.101 ( talk) 10:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
The "Dampening" article was exclusively describing musical damping, even though it used the term "dampening". It seems the more common usage is to call that damping too, dampening seeming to be a much less common way to refer to it, if Google hits on musical terms mean anything. I could see this stuff belonging in a "Damping (music)" article possibly, but the concept is pretty much the same as it is in physics and control systems, and the other article was pretty short, so I just merged. The material is not well integrated right now. It occurs to me that you might use the musical concept to help explain the physics concept, killing two birds with one stone. Gigs ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
The graph [ [1]] doesn't look right to me. Surely the green line and the blue line should not cross as x decreases to zero. And the 3 lines should all have the same gradient at t = 0, because the motion there (when the velocity is small) depends only on the mass and the spring constant, not the damping coefficient. -- Occultations ( talk) 12:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I would like to move this to Damped harmonic oscillator, since that is really what this page is about. It might help avoid the merging problem with Q, for instance. It also fits in as a 'subpage' of harmonic oscillator. TStein ( talk) 05:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I think there should be an example of a damped oscillator with forced motion. Namely the damped simple pendulum as it is the most easiest example ever. Also, I think that this will add a new dimension to the article as this aspect is not discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gustav Ulsh Iler ( talk • contribs) 22:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Around January, someone deleted quite a bit of the article, making much of it confusing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of intervening edits, so I am unable to revert it. 67.170.103.34 ( talk) 05:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure this article should have a picture of a mass on a spring, and it be called a 'damped' system. Dampening is proportional to the velocity the mass would be travelling at, and a spring does not produce damping. A dampener produces damping. A spring produces a force proportional to the distance it is stretched. Someone want to change this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.28.168 ( talk) 16:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Dampener should be Damper. Dampener is something that makes an object damp, i.e. wet. In academic literature we just call something that restraints movement a damper. I agree with the diagram could be made better with a visible damper element. Though a non-ideal spring would have some form of energy loss. That diagram can be considered an exagerated case of frictional damping -- MobiusPizza ( talk) 10:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
The word "guitar" does not even appear in this article, so (without reading it) I assume this is an incorrect redirect, and this article doesn't cover the guitar technique of scratching dampened (palm-muted) strings. Damn, I could really use an article on that right now!
Thanks for your attention. If you can fix this, please do!
The part of the following sentence from the article which is in brackets seems interesting, yet is worthless to the reader because omega and omega_0 are undefined: "In physics, damping is an effect that reduces the amplitude of oscillations in an oscillatory system (except for mass-dominated systems where \omega/ \omega_0 > √2), particularly the harmonic oscillator." It is not enough to assume that readers will be familiar with maths-symbol norms when writing on scientific subjects. Perhaps someone who knows what these terms are could include ", where \omega is ___________ and \omega_0 is ___________" after the √2? Cheers. 109.145.85.3 ( talk) 17:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Damping is a linear influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing, restricting or preventing the oscillations. Viscous drag can do this in a mechanical system, and in electronic oscillators, resistance can have the same effect. A potentially oscillatory variable is damped when a damping influence opposes changes in it in direct proportion to the instantaneous rate of change, velocity or time derivative, of the variable itself.
I have made some changes to the main article that addressed most of the issues that I raised. The beginning of the article is roughly where I would like to see it in the big picture at least. There are still a few duplicate paragraphs in the Linear Damping section that I would like to combine, but I have ran out of time for now. The example used is a little to mathematically heavy for my taste and may fit better with harmonic oscillator. It would also be nice to have a consistent notation. I am afraid that I don't have time to deal with them now, though ;( .
Why is the effect of buoyancy force not considered in case of fluids? Shouldn't we notify that mass in this case is the apparent mass?-- 82.114.171.82 ( talk) 17:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC) (Almuhammedi)
This article covers essentially the same material as Harmonic oscillator. While the concept of damping may well apply to other types of systems, this article focuses solely on damped harmonic oscillators, and that topic is already completely covered elsewhere. Had I noticed this article at its creation, I would have nominated it for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#A10 but as it has existed for some length of time and been edited by several editors, I believe the best course now is to find any material in this article that is unique and not already covered at the other article and move it there, leaving this as a redirect. WikiDan61 ChatMe! ReadMe!! 14:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
From a perspective of physics vs. engineering, damping and damping ratio describe two separate but related quantities. In its simplest form, damping exists as a form of entropy generation, while the damping ratio is a convenient parameter used in the non-dimensional analysis of an oscillating system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antwan718 ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Even in the fields which there is investigative analysis of damping, there is not a truly well understood manner which explicitly states how damping occurs; by having the wikipedia entry limited strictly to "damping ratio" it makes the incoproation of other quantification of damping such as the use of a Loss Factor prohibitive. There is a good review article that discusses the relation between damping, damping ratio, and the loss factor phenomena [5].
Too many incoming links to the redirect were for distinctly difference specific aspects of damping, so I made it a disambig page. Now the incoming links need to be sorted for what was intended. Could be harmonic oscillator or damping ratio or damping factor or some of those other forms of damping. Alternatively, we could go back to the broad topic article as suggested above in 2018; but we'd still want to review incoming links and get some of them to better places. Dicklyon ( talk) 06:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
rename Damping ratio to Damping and still cover the metric and phenomenon in the same article. The Damping ratio article actually already does so at this point, so all that's left is to rename. In fact, I proposed this yesterday at Talk:Damping ratio#Damping vs Damping ratio as I'm only now finding out that this option has already been discussed. If you both still agree this is a good idea and/or have any other input, please let me know over there. Lennart97 ( talk) 09:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
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Can someone explain to me how a critically damped system would converge faster when in fact it is multiplied by t in part of the solution? Since the over-damped system is a decaying exponential times a constant it would decay faster than the exponential time a positivally growing constant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.84.196.167 ( talk) 01:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
So an underdamped door-closer will "bounce" on the way to being closed? Should mention this to complete the analogy. jyavner 21:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the door-closer analogy is a bit confusing. A door-closer's motion is only described by a second-order differential equation if there is a spring involved, as well as the mass and damper. If it's just a mass and damper, then it can be described by a first-order differential equation and it cannot be described as over-, critically-, or under-damped. Perhaps a spring should be mentioned in these analogies? Dkraemer1 19:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it's probably a good idea to alter the current gif-file a bit, in a way that the system stays in 'rest' a little bit longer'. Just add a frame or 2, 3 with the end of the simulation I purpose. Right now, the thing doesn't seem to stop at the end of the simulation. Anyone able to alter this? -- Flekkie ( talk) 21:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Is it worth including that over-damping is 'aperiodic' motion? Given the necessary initial conditions the motion can pass through the equilibrium position once (but only once), i.e. start off with a positive displacement, pass through zero, then converge to zero from the negative side. It doesn't always look like exponential decay as in the diagram. (source: 'Vibrations and Waves in Physics', Third Edition, Iain G. Main) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.123.249 ( talk) 11:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
I've replaced Image:Springdampermass.png with Image:Mass-Spring-Damper.png, which I originally drew for Nondimensionalization. I also changed the symbol used for the damping constant in the article from R to B to match the image. Of course, it would be easy to create a variant of the image with a different symbol and without the external force arrow, but I feel it looks good enough as it is. If you disagree, please say so (or just revert me, it's no big deal). — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 23:03, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Move from my talk-- Light current 21:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that the figure looks great, but it is a little bit confusing on one point: x should be defined as positive in one direction. Showing x going both ways makes it difficult to figure out the direction of the spring and damping forces. Dkraemer1 19:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I notice you (and 72.132.7.159, which I assume is your IP address) have been editing Damping to change the notation used in the article, in particular changing the sigmas used to denote the damping factor to zetas (or, in earlier edits, to alphas). While I appreciate your attempts to improve the article, plase note the following:
In general, it's better to discuss changes like this on the talk page first before making them. That way, we can choose a consistent notation that all editors find appropriate and avoid needless back-and-forth edit warring. It also makes it less likely for someone to mistake your edits for sneaky vandalism. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 20:38, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
72.132.7.159 appears to be in agreement with me and has been changing the sigmas to zetas. But he didnt change them all. I changed the ones he missed. You reverted all his recent changes to the page. So Im not quite sure where we are now. I think we need to revert to a much earlier version around 18 May and go from there. What do you think?-- Light current 01:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes thanks for taking the time to do that 8-). Ive copied it from your sub page now and it is correct IMO and consistent. One thing that is bothering me tho' is the introduction of the 'damping ratio' early on and its inclusion in the system description. THis tends to confuse the issue. The equation is usually quoted using the damping factor only. I intend to change this soon. THanks for your help. 8-)-- Light current 14:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that using zeta, as in , is the way to go. That is what appears in the article currently, written as . However, the name for this parameter is given as the "damping factor". This is not the standard in engineering literature, from what I've seen. It should be called the "damping ratio". A quick look at the Wikipedia entries for damping ratio and damping factor confirms this conclusion. Dkraemer1 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I want to propose a constant change for the damping coefficient from capital B to a lower case c. This change would put the article in line with the standard notation taken in most engineering programs. Also, pertaining to the zeta conversation, zeta is the appropriate symbol as far as I've ever seen in all of my engineering courses and textbooks. -- Barkman 17:34, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I dont think these pics are particularly helpful (sorry) . There are some better ones you could use over at tuned circuit I think! 8-)-- Light current 00:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
-- Mysteryegg 20:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
There is one specific problem with the diagram with the red, green, and blue lines comparing under-, over-, and critical damping. It shows the critical damping case with the greatest initial negative gradient, whereas in fact it should be the under-damped case. The less damping, the faster the system initially heads toward the point of stability: the problem of course is that if insufficiently damped it overshoots. A replacement diagram would be good but unfortunately I didd't see anything useful at tuned circuit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.229.11.118 ( talk) 16:18, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Hey what's the deal? I added an explaination about the differences between dampening and damping since it is a very common mistake and someone wantonly obliterated it. dq 23:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Do you watch any of the Star Treks? They get it wrong all the time. Most engineers get it wrong too if they are not vibration experts. dq 02:49, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Unfortuneately, not everyone is like you. Maybe we need a third party is this discussion? dq 16:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Agree that this should be in the article. I wish people would stop removing stuff like this.
Dampening is "To deaden, restrain, or depress" while damping is "The capacity built into a mechanical or electrical device to prevent excessive correction and the resulting instability or oscillatory conditions." See also dampening, dampening effect. — Omegatron 21:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Both terms are gerunds. Their roots, Dampen and Damp, have several transitive and intransitive definitions. Among the "control/limit" definitions, dampen and damp can seem very similar by denotation. The gerunds, however, are not usually used in the same connotation. Only damping can relate to control theory or oscillations. In other words, if you damp a second order system to keep it within stable parameters, you are dealing with its damping, which is now a term describing a field of study. Dampening is not used in its gerund form as often and more often relates to suppressing abstract concepts, like dampening a political movement. Webster uses "The heat dampened our spirits" as an example.
You might look at the words' origins to confirm this, but you might suggest that all physical properties are damped and abstract properties are dampened. However, I'm more inclined to believe that damping requires indirectly affecting oscillations, etc. by controlling some damping factor that it depends on. Therefore dampen is used for taking direct actions to "silence" the direct object where there is no differential equation to describe the situation. This could justify musicians' use of dampening when they just use their hands to dampen the sound. Supporting the physical/abstract theory, for example, you might damp a fire, or use "inertial dampers" in Star Trek, but dampen a mood. The latter theory might be supported by the same examples saying that you are limiting the oxygen factor that fire needs or increasing the stiffness parameter in a spring, while there is no differential equation and thus no damping ratio to describe direct intervention.
My conclusion is: damping is a mathematical concept describing a means of affecting some natural response with a constant damping factor, and dampening is a direct intervension of the scope of some concept with no defined consistant damping factor.-- Mysteryegg 20:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Can anyone say why this parameter has been introduced? It just seems to complicate the picture! I mean what does it represent anyway? 8-(-- Light current 21:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
THe page history shows that it is not I who has been tinkering with the equations (lately).
THe introduction of gamma is confusing and uneccesary to the explanation (especially when it doesnt represent anything tangible). I have never seen gamma quoted in these sorts of equations before and I suggest removal to simplify page. 8-|-- Light current 09:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Please add appropriate units for variables and constants - discussion of physics/mechanics topics is greatly improved by including a consistent set of units.
In answer to jyavner, who inquired regarding a possible bounce for an underdamped closer: yes, an underdamped closer would "want to" bounce, because it would reach the closed position with nonzero velocity. It is also worth noting that a critically damped closer might suffer a bounce as well, if the person gave the door a sufficiently large initial shove (i.e., a sufficiently large initial velocity in the "closing" direction). Critical damping does not imply that there is no crossing through the equilibrium state; whether the static equilibrium position is passed or not depends on the initial conditions. Furthermore, though I do not design these devices, I strongly suspect that that they are designed to be (highly) overdamped rather than critically damped for precisely this reason - a sufficiently large amount of damping makes it impossible for a person to slam the door. All closers in my experience appear to exhibit this behavior. (I am not including those two-way swinging doors between restaurant dining rooms and kitchens, which are clearly underdamped, and have little or no intentionally included damping.)
In response to Dkraemer1, who brought up the subject of springs and the order of the ODE involved, the door closer itself must contain a spring element. If there were no spring, the door would never move on its own, and it would never "seek" the closed position. The closer+door system is indeed, therefore, a second-order mass-spring-damper system. It may also be worth noting that the spring is not at its equilibrium position when the door is closed; rather, it is somewhat deflected, so that the door is held in its closed position with some (nonzero) force.
The most important thing that needs to be said (and currently isn't) regarding the critical damping case is that it gives the fastest possible return to a state of equilibrium.
For all of these reasons, I propose removing all mention of door closers in connection with critical damping and inserting language making clear that critical damping produces a system with the fastest possible return to a state of equilibrium. Tpower27 21:08, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I made a full revision to this article, added some more formulation and a picture comparing the different system behaviors. I feel that there is no need for a separate article for Damping ratio, as there are duplicate explanations and the understanding of the damping ratio should be favored by including it in the [[Damping] article. So, I propose to merge Damping ratio to Damping. - Nmnogueira 11:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Damping, and most classic sciences are not expanding in the same manner. It's true that there are not wiki entries for every scientific property, and not all have been adequately written in the wiki world. However, the wiki appropriate info for the majority of sciences is well known, and can be found by scanning section headers in physics/engineering/science textbooks. It is more acceptable for cutting edge technologies, such as nano-tech to be split into multiple entries...not damping however.
Lastly, if you are going to merge "damping constant" into damping, you also need to merge "Coulomb damping", "Shock absorber", & "Dashpot" into damping. If there is ever a "viscous damping" wiki created, that needs to go into damping as well. But if you are going to merge these together, it should be done across the board...i.e, "Torsional vibration" needs to be merged into "Vibration", because they have virtually the same relations and equations...but instead of mass for linear, you have moment of inertia for torsional, and instead of x for linear, you have θ for torsional As an engineering student, i would much rather look at one entry for "damping," and see "all" there is to do with damping in one article. of course each section would be titled, and if i searched for something specific, like "damped natural frequency", "damping" would still come up as a result if it is included in the damping article. That would be much better then flipping through multiple wiki entries on very similar topics... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheeto81 ( talk • contribs)
re: "An automobile suspension has a damping near critical damping (slightly higher for "hard" suspensions and slightly less for "soft" ones)"
This statement is a touch misleading. Automobile suspension damping ranges from approximately 0.25 for passenger vehicles (ride softness) to 0.7 and higher for racecars (all-out handling). The relationship between ride quality (low damping ratio) vs. handling (high damping ratio) is relatively well studied. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.82.18.94 ( talk) 20:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
strongly OPPOSE merger.....Practically the people search both the stuffs for different purposes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.175.82.248 ( talk) 08:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the Q factor and the damping ratio are 2 ways to measure basically the same thing (see Q factor for the simple equation between them). I think they should be merged into the same article. Since it looks like "damping ratio" is going to be merged into this "damping" article (see above), I guess Q factor should (sooner or later) be merged in as well. -- 75.19.73.101 ( talk) 10:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
The "Dampening" article was exclusively describing musical damping, even though it used the term "dampening". It seems the more common usage is to call that damping too, dampening seeming to be a much less common way to refer to it, if Google hits on musical terms mean anything. I could see this stuff belonging in a "Damping (music)" article possibly, but the concept is pretty much the same as it is in physics and control systems, and the other article was pretty short, so I just merged. The material is not well integrated right now. It occurs to me that you might use the musical concept to help explain the physics concept, killing two birds with one stone. Gigs ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
The graph [ [1]] doesn't look right to me. Surely the green line and the blue line should not cross as x decreases to zero. And the 3 lines should all have the same gradient at t = 0, because the motion there (when the velocity is small) depends only on the mass and the spring constant, not the damping coefficient. -- Occultations ( talk) 12:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
I would like to move this to Damped harmonic oscillator, since that is really what this page is about. It might help avoid the merging problem with Q, for instance. It also fits in as a 'subpage' of harmonic oscillator. TStein ( talk) 05:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I think there should be an example of a damped oscillator with forced motion. Namely the damped simple pendulum as it is the most easiest example ever. Also, I think that this will add a new dimension to the article as this aspect is not discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gustav Ulsh Iler ( talk • contribs) 22:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Around January, someone deleted quite a bit of the article, making much of it confusing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of intervening edits, so I am unable to revert it. 67.170.103.34 ( talk) 05:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure this article should have a picture of a mass on a spring, and it be called a 'damped' system. Dampening is proportional to the velocity the mass would be travelling at, and a spring does not produce damping. A dampener produces damping. A spring produces a force proportional to the distance it is stretched. Someone want to change this —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.28.168 ( talk) 16:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Dampener should be Damper. Dampener is something that makes an object damp, i.e. wet. In academic literature we just call something that restraints movement a damper. I agree with the diagram could be made better with a visible damper element. Though a non-ideal spring would have some form of energy loss. That diagram can be considered an exagerated case of frictional damping -- MobiusPizza ( talk) 10:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
The word "guitar" does not even appear in this article, so (without reading it) I assume this is an incorrect redirect, and this article doesn't cover the guitar technique of scratching dampened (palm-muted) strings. Damn, I could really use an article on that right now!
Thanks for your attention. If you can fix this, please do!
The part of the following sentence from the article which is in brackets seems interesting, yet is worthless to the reader because omega and omega_0 are undefined: "In physics, damping is an effect that reduces the amplitude of oscillations in an oscillatory system (except for mass-dominated systems where \omega/ \omega_0 > √2), particularly the harmonic oscillator." It is not enough to assume that readers will be familiar with maths-symbol norms when writing on scientific subjects. Perhaps someone who knows what these terms are could include ", where \omega is ___________ and \omega_0 is ___________" after the √2? Cheers. 109.145.85.3 ( talk) 17:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Damping is a linear influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing, restricting or preventing the oscillations. Viscous drag can do this in a mechanical system, and in electronic oscillators, resistance can have the same effect. A potentially oscillatory variable is damped when a damping influence opposes changes in it in direct proportion to the instantaneous rate of change, velocity or time derivative, of the variable itself.
I have made some changes to the main article that addressed most of the issues that I raised. The beginning of the article is roughly where I would like to see it in the big picture at least. There are still a few duplicate paragraphs in the Linear Damping section that I would like to combine, but I have ran out of time for now. The example used is a little to mathematically heavy for my taste and may fit better with harmonic oscillator. It would also be nice to have a consistent notation. I am afraid that I don't have time to deal with them now, though ;( .
Why is the effect of buoyancy force not considered in case of fluids? Shouldn't we notify that mass in this case is the apparent mass?-- 82.114.171.82 ( talk) 17:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC) (Almuhammedi)
This article covers essentially the same material as Harmonic oscillator. While the concept of damping may well apply to other types of systems, this article focuses solely on damped harmonic oscillators, and that topic is already completely covered elsewhere. Had I noticed this article at its creation, I would have nominated it for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#A10 but as it has existed for some length of time and been edited by several editors, I believe the best course now is to find any material in this article that is unique and not already covered at the other article and move it there, leaving this as a redirect. WikiDan61 ChatMe! ReadMe!! 14:36, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
From a perspective of physics vs. engineering, damping and damping ratio describe two separate but related quantities. In its simplest form, damping exists as a form of entropy generation, while the damping ratio is a convenient parameter used in the non-dimensional analysis of an oscillating system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antwan718 ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
Even in the fields which there is investigative analysis of damping, there is not a truly well understood manner which explicitly states how damping occurs; by having the wikipedia entry limited strictly to "damping ratio" it makes the incoproation of other quantification of damping such as the use of a Loss Factor prohibitive. There is a good review article that discusses the relation between damping, damping ratio, and the loss factor phenomena [5].
Too many incoming links to the redirect were for distinctly difference specific aspects of damping, so I made it a disambig page. Now the incoming links need to be sorted for what was intended. Could be harmonic oscillator or damping ratio or damping factor or some of those other forms of damping. Alternatively, we could go back to the broad topic article as suggested above in 2018; but we'd still want to review incoming links and get some of them to better places. Dicklyon ( talk) 06:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
rename Damping ratio to Damping and still cover the metric and phenomenon in the same article. The Damping ratio article actually already does so at this point, so all that's left is to rename. In fact, I proposed this yesterday at Talk:Damping ratio#Damping vs Damping ratio as I'm only now finding out that this option has already been discussed. If you both still agree this is a good idea and/or have any other input, please let me know over there. Lennart97 ( talk) 09:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)