Viscous damping

Viscous damping force is a formulation of the damping phenomena, in which the source of damping force is modeled as a function of the volume, shape, and velocity of an object traversing through a real fluid with viscosity.[1]

Typical examples of viscous damping in mechanical systems include:

  • Fluid films between surfaces
  • Fluid flow around a piston in a cylinder
  • Fluid flow through an orifice
  • Fluid flow within a journal bearing

Viscous damping also refers to damping devices. Most often they damp motion by providing a force or torque opposing motion proportional to the velocity. This may be affected by fluid flow or motion of magnetic structures. The intended effect is to improve the damping ratio.

  • Shock absorbers in cars
  • Seismic retrofitting with viscous dampers[2]
  • Tuned mass dampers in tall buildings
  • Deployment actuators in spacecraft


This article uses material from the Wikipedia article
 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
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