About Damping

Damping models the energy loss in a nonconservative system.

See Also
Applying Damping

There are two basic types of damping: material damping and modal damping. This Damping feature should be used to configure modal damping, but material damping must be chosen in the step configuration—see Harmonic Response Step and Modal Dynamic Step.

Damping is a step-dependent action; it is available only for harmonic response steps and modal (linear) dynamic steps.

Material damping can be defined:

  • for direct-integration (nonlinear, implicit or explicit), subspace-based direct-integration, direct-solution steady-state, and subspace-based steady-state dynamic analysis; or
  • for mode-based (linear) dynamic analysis.