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Dampers
The essential, defining, property of a damper is that it is a device which associates each force to a velocity. You may be a little less familiar with dampers than with springs, but dampers are simpler, so we'll start here. By the velocity v of the damper, we mean the rate at which the damper is getting longer. By the force f of the damper, we mean the force applied to the damper, by whatever is applying the force. Convention: when we talk about the force associated with a damper we mean the force applied to the damper by something else (perhaps your hands). The best dampers are oil-filled tubes, with a plunger that has to squish its way through the oil as you lengthen or shorten the damper. The more force you apply to stretch the damper, the faster the plunger moves through the oil. If you stop trying to stretch the damper, i.e. you stop applying a force to it, it immediately stops lengthening; its velocity drops immediately to zero.
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This is in marked contrast to a mass. If you get a mass moving by pushing on it for a while, and then you suddenly stop pushing on it (f=0), it doesn't instantly stop moving (v=0)

(A) When we talk about the "velocity v of a damper", it's important to realize that this is the relative velocity of the two ends, not the velocity of either end, or of the middle. If both ends of a damper are unconnected to anything else, there can't possibly be any force on the damper, trying to stretch it or compress it. Nevertheless you can toss it through the air at any speed you want, and it remains f=0, and therefore v=0. If the velocity of one end is v1 and the velocity of the other end is v2, the "velocity of the damper" v is v = v2- v1. Convention: when we talk about the velocity associated with a damper we mean the speed at which the damper is lengthening. If we say "this damper has a velocity of -20 cm/sec" we mean it is getting shorter, end-to-end. (This does not tell us the absolute

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velocity of either end of the damper.) It is very important to realize that, as defined above, the force associated with the damper, f, is the same regardless of which end you look at. f>0 means an attempt to lengthen the damper; f<0 implies an attempt to shorten the damper. It's the same at both ends. (Yes, the sign, positive of negative, of f is the same at both ends.) Some people find this totally natural and some people find it counterintuitive. If you are in the second group, the only cure is to find someone else, each grab an end of a damper, and discuss whether you are each pulling or pushing on the damper. You should find that at any given moment you are either both pulling (which, by the convention above, you will call f>0), or both pushing (f<0). Of course "pulling" means south to one of you and north to the other. But each one is pulling, so each one should say "I am applying a positive force to the damper". Summary: sign conventions
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The force in ("through") a damper is said to be positive when it is putting the damper in tension, and therefore attempting to lengthen it. The velocity of ("across") a damper is said to be positive when the damper is lengthening. f > 0, v > 0 . . . tension, lengthening f < 0, v < 0 . . . compression, shortening

Across and Through variables It's useful to discuss how our dynamic variables are measured, especially because this thought process will translate easily to all the other domains we will be studying. Suppose we have two magic instruments. The first you can aim at any point of a mechanical system and it tells its absolute x velocity, positive to the right. The other you can aim at any point of a mechanical systems and it tells whether there is tension or compression at that point: tension registers positive, compression registers negative. If we point the "tension" instrument anywhere along a cable holding up a large weight, it will register positive. If we point it at any point of a pillar supporting a large load, it will register negative.

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(B) Suppose you and your friend are still both pulling on the two ends of a damper, which (as a consequence) is slowly getting longer. Any place along the damper that you point the tension instrument it will register positive. The whole damper is in tension, and if it breaks in half the pieces will separate (which is, I suppose, what it means to be in tension). You get the same reading on the tension instrument all along the length of the damper. We can say that the damper transmitted a force through itself, end-to-end, unchanged. Thus we say that force is a through variable. To understand why the magic instrument shows this result, we can turn to Newton's Second Law. You might notice that Figure B was drawn with equal and opposite forces on the ends of the damper, already enforcing that force is a through variable. If you have any doubts, we can prove this fact by redrawing the figure more generally as Figure C below,

(C) and applying Newton's Law to find f1 + f2= ma By definition we take the mass of the damper to be zero and thus f2 = - f1 So we define f2= - f1= f, yielding the original figure (B). So from now on for dampers (and also springs in the next chapter), we will understand that force is a through variable. Now apply the other magic instrument while you and your friend are still pulling on the two ends of the damper. If you measure absolute velocity at the left end of the damper, it is negative. If you measure absolute velocity at

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the right end, it is positive. The damper clearly does not transmit velocity from one end to the other, because the absolute velocity is observably different at the two ends. To determine the quantity that we have defined to be the velocity (v) of the damper, you have to subtract the two absolute velocities of its ends. You have to measure the relative velocity across the damper. Thus we say that velocity is an across variable. More intuition work: I hope you and your friend are still pulling on opposite ends of a damper. If one of you reduces the force you are applying to the damper, the other one must do so too, instantly. You have no choice in this matter. If your friend reduces the force and you do not, you will pull the damper out of your friend's hands. A damper has one force, end-to-end, all the way "through". If you apply a force to a damper, that force is transmitted right through the damper, unchanged, to the other end. It is felt by whoever (or whatever) is connected to the other end. If you pull with a force of 3 newtons, your friend at the other end will be pulled with a force of 3 newtons. This is so even though the damper, which experiences a force of +3 newtons, will begin to lengthen as a consequence.

(B) Constitutive laws I encourage you to think of each element of a mechanical system as having a purpose in life. Each element has a constitutive law relating some of the dynamic variables, and its purpose in life is to enforce that constitutive law. (You don't have to be quite this anthropomorphic about it.) The constitutive law of a damper might be f=bv (1)

where b is called the damping constant, very much like k in Hooke's law f = k x is called the spring constant (or Hooke's constant). The units of b are newton seconds per meter. However, not all dampers obey equation (1). Great Truths. Equation (1) is not a Great Truth. Not all dampers

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obey it. And different dampers, even if they do more-or-less obey equation (1), have different damping constants b. Let's distinguish among three levels of Truth: 1. "Momentum is conserved." This is a Great Truth. It's not just a result of the way we think about things or the definitions of the variables we use, it's the way the universe works. And it's always true, not just approximately but exactly. 2. "Velocity is the time-derivative of displacement." This is always true, but it's not very deep. It's a matter of definition; it's what we mean by the term "velocity". It's a Truth, but it doesn't aspire to Greatness. 3. "f = b v". This is only a "Semi-Truth". Some dampers behave in a way that can be described pretty well by this equation, and some don't. More generally than equation (1), the constitutive law of a device (here, a damper) may be expressed as a graph. For a damper, this graph will have axes f and v. I like to think of a graph as having an input variable and an output variable. These are also called the independent and the dependent variables. Conventionally the horizontal axis is used for the independent variable (the input.) If the graph describes the behavior of a damper, and v is the independent variable, it expresses the idea that we impose a particular velocity v on the damper, and we observe the resulting force f. It may seem at first that we can only impose a force, not a velocity. If the object you are "imposing upon" is the wall of your room, that's true: you can impose any force you wish and observe the resulting velocity, which (hopefully) will be zero. However, if you are a bulldozer, you can impose a velocity upon your wall -- and you might have a bit of difficulty if you wanted instead to impose a force of only 10 pounds. So there's nothing intrinsic that says force has to be the independent variable.
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Make sure you can imagine doing either experiment to a damper: either impose a variety of force levels, and measure the resulting velocity for each; or impose a variety of velocity levels, and measure the resulting force for each. A hypodermic syringe (no needle, no cap) makes a pretty good damper, with a "human scale" range of forces and

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velocities. You can impose either a force or a velocity, and observe the resulting velocity or force. Try it. One plastic straw stuffed inside another plastic straw makes a so-so substitute. A wooden spoon moving vertically in a thick milkshake works well too - but you have to ask yourself "what are the two ends of this damper?" The spoon is one end - and you may not notice that the other end is the bottom of the cup, because it is resting on the table. It helps to imagine operating a damper with your two hands. Where do you have to place your two hands to operate the damper? In this case, to use both hands you would hold the cup with one and the spoon with the other. In the left graph below, I've estimated the result for the hypodermic syringe. You can see this graph is not going to be well approximated by an equation of the form of equation (1). That doesn't make it a bad damper! It just makes it a bad linear damper. People who build dampers for a living don't make them out of hypodermic syringes. They try to make dampers whose constitutive law is more like the one in the right graph below, which can be pretty well approximated by the linear constitutive law f = 2.2 v, or perhaps a bit more accurately by the nonlinear constitutive law f = 2.2 v + .02 v3.

Moral of the story: The constitutive law of a damper might be expressed as a graph relating force to velocity, or as an equation relating force to velocity, or (if we're lucky, or if we're willing to settle for an approximation) even as a linear equation relating force to velocity. All of these are legitimate descriptions of a constitutive law. Just as we tend to think of the horizontal axis of a graph as being the input, and the vertical as being the output, we often look at the right side of an equation as being the input and the left as being the output. Instead of this viewpoint, let's look at the constitutive law (whether in the form of an equation or a graph), as an instruction to do something. Specifically, to take v, act on it according to the graph or the equation, and produce f as output. As a block diagram,

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-- or --

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