A comparison of material damping measurements in resonant column using the steady-state and free-vibration decay methods

•Resonant column tests were performed on sand with a focus on damping measurements.•The steady-state vibration and the free-vibration decay methods were used.•The scatter of damping values was in general less than ±15% between the two methods.•The results were also compared with literature models for dry and natural soils.

The study reports results associated with the small to medium strain range material damping of quartz sand. The experiments were conducted in a fixed-free type resonant column and the samples were subjected to torsional mode of vibration at their first natural frequency. A comparison between the derived damping values using two different methods is presented: the steady-state vibration method (SSV) and the free-vibration decay method (FVD). Within the scatter of the data the two different methods in measuring material damping provided comparable results with a scatter, in most cases, of less than ±15% for the working strain range of the resonant column method. The damping values derived from the FVD and SSV methods were also compared with proposed models in the literature by means of stiffness degradation–damping increase correlation.