Inductive mode selective damping of structural vibrations

Structural vibrations pose significant challenges in various engineering applications and require effective damping strategies to improve the overall performance and longevity of systems. While some oscillations can significantly reduce the longevity of systems, others might contribute positively to the overall system performance. Thus, this contribution presents a novel method of an inductive damping concept, that targets only specific vibrational modes based on their mode shapes. By analyzing the used inductive damping element in the context of a single degree of freedom oscillator, it is shown, that it functions as an ideal viscous damper only if the dynamics of the electric part of the system are neglected. The concept of mode selective damping is presented, using two of these damping elements in an oscillator chain with three masses. By altering the wiring configurations connecting the two damping elements in the electrical domain, the damping behavior can be manipulated to selectively damp only specific modes according to their mode shapes.