Damping in beams and plates due to slipping at the support boundaries

Abstract Dry friction damping due to axial sliding surfaces normal to the principal lateral direction of structural motion is studied. Primary emphasis is on sufficiently large motion that slipping occurs throughout a cycle. Beams with arbitrary support conditions and vibrating in an arbitrary mode are considered; also a pinned-pinned rectangular plate is studied. In all cases, a simple explicit formula is obtained for an equivalent, linear, viscous critical damping ratio.