Damping performance of two simple oscillators coupled by a visco-elastic connection

Abstract A simple dynamic system composed of two linear oscillators is employed to analyze the passive control performance that can be achieved through a visco-elastic damper connecting two adjacent free-standing structures. By extension, the model may also describe the energy dissipation which can be obtained by an internal coupling between two quasi-independent sub-systems composing a single complex structure. Two alternatives are evaluated for the linear coupling by considering either the serial or the parallel spring–dashpot arrangement known as the Kelvin–Voigt and the Maxwell damper model, which may synthetically reproduce the constitutive behavior of different industrial devices. The complex eigenvalues of the coupled system are parametrically analyzed to determine the potential benefits realized by different combinations of the coupling stiffness and damping coefficient. A design strategy to assess these parameters is outlined, driven by the relevant observation that a perfect tuning of the natural frequencies always corresponds, in the parameter space, to the maximum modal damping for one of the resonant modes, independent of the damper model. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is discussed for different classes of the controlled system, depending on the mass and stiffness ratio of the component oscillators. As a major result, different design parameter charts for the two damper models are carried out and compared to each other. Performance indexes are introduced to quantitatively evaluate the passive control performance with respect to the mitigation of the system forced response under harmonic and seismic ground excitation. The analyses confirm the validity of the design strategy for a well-balanced mitigation of the displacement and acceleration response in both the oscillators.