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Friction Damper Test Tips

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Mark8574

Mechanical
Jul 11, 2019
1
Hi, I'd like to ask some tips related to testing a friction damper. Basically, it is composed by two cylinders slidably and coaxially connected, with an annular friction element constrained on the external surface of the internal cylinder. During the relative motion of the two, the friction element rubs against the internal surface of the external cylinder and this causes a dissipative friction force.
Usually, this kind of dampers are characterized by a number (in Newton) that quantifies the friction force exterted by the damper (80/100/120 N are common values).
The damper under analysis doesn't have any information about this quantity. I would like to test it in order to have an idea of the order of magnitude of this friction force ( I mean, I don't care about the tenths of Newton, but I'd like to know if it is 100N instead of 90N).

The main problem is that I cannot use any kind of machines, so I need to perform a "manual" experimental setup.
I thought to fix somewhere one end of the damper and to attach (someway) to the other end well known masses. In this way, I can characterize at least the static friction force, because the free-cylinder starts to slide when the well-known masses produce a weight force Greater than the static fricion force.

Do you have any advise for me?
 
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Just mash on the dang thing with a push/pull gauge that has an easy-reset max-hold function. Start pushing, and as soon as motion begins, reset the max-hold.

Of course, if it's a competently designed damper, the sliding elements should have been selected such that the difference between static and dynamic friction is as small as possible, so the max-hold reset may not be needed. Or, on the other hand, you may want to know that difference. Either way, ye push-pull is the way to go.

 
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