Design of a New Type of Eddy Current Damper With Increased Damping Density

Eddy current dampers have advantages of no mechanical contact, high reliability and stability, but also suffer from the disadvantage of large mass and packing size. In this paper we present a new type of eddy current damper with remarkable high efficiency and compactness. Instead of orienting the magnetic field in a uniform direction, we split the magnetic field into multiple ones with alternative directions so as to reduce the electrical resistance of the eddy current loops and thus to increase the damping force. Experimental results demonstrate that an eddy current damper of 100 × 150 × 140 mm3 has a damping coefficient nearly 3000 Ns/m. The damping density [Ns/m/m3 ] and dimensionless damping constant are 3–7 times higher than those in literature.Copyright © 2009 by ASME