Advanced damper with high stiffness and high hysteresis damping based on negative structural stiffness

High structural damping combined with high stiffness is achieved by negative stiffness elements. Negative incremental structural stiffness occurs when a column with flat ends is subjected to snap-through buckling. Large hysteresis (i.e., high damping) can be achieved provided the ends of the column undergo tilting from flat to edge contact. The column configuration provides high structural stiffness. Stable axial dampers with initial modulus similar to that of the parent material and with enhanced damping were designed built and tested. Effective damping of approximately two and stiffness-damping product of approximately 200 GPa were achieved in such dampers consisting of stainless steel columns. This is a significant improvement for this figure of merit (i.e., the stiffness-damping product), which generally cannot exceed 0.6 GPa for currently used damping systems.