The requirements for spacecraft and launch vehicles have driven numerous investigations of vibration suppression techniques and devices. Appendages on spacecraft and component vibrations on launch vehicles are common problems for which vibration attenuation is beneficial or necessary. This paper documents the hardware development and component and system level demonstration of a viscous fluid damper design in a very low frequency appendage application. The resulting design has significant advantages over state-of-the-art viscous damper designs and can meet the requirements of many future systems. Potential applications include damping struts, isolation systems, and tuned dampers. Advantages of the design include excellent predictability and linearity, the capability for high forces and displacements, high hydraulic stiffness, the absence of elastomeric seals and the potential for passive control of damper property variations with temperature.

Date Published: 5 May 1995
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 2445, Smart Structures and Materials 1995: Passive Damping, (5 May 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.208886

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2445:
Smart Structures and Materials 1995: Passive Damping
Conor D. Johnson, Editor(s)