Damping Effects of Boundary Conditions Supporting an Euler Beam

The observed damping of an excited Euler beam can be attributed to various effects including acoustic radiation into surrounding air, the physical transfer of energy through boundary conditions of the beam, and the generation of heat due to internal properties of the oscillating material. By designing an environment in which these first two cases of damping are mitigated, one can obtain an upper bound for the energy loss caused discretely by the internal damping of a material. While the removal of air is relatively straightforward using vacuum technology, supporting a beam in such a way that no energy is lost through its supports is a greater challenge. Attempts to design such a lossless support system will be described. The effects on the observed damping of both the support and the method of measurement will then be outlined. It will be shown that supporting the beam on thin wire at node locations has the lowest effect on the observed damping of individual beam modes.