Defining damping

You can define damping for mode-based analyses and for direct-integration dynamic analysis in Abaqus/Standard and for explicit dynamic analysis in Abaqus/Explicit. See About Dynamic Analysis Procedures, and Material Damping, for more information.

  1. From the menu bar in the Edit Material dialog box, select MechanicalDamping.

    (For information on displaying the Edit Material dialog box, see Creating or editing a material.)

  2. In the Alpha field, enter a value for the αR factor to create Rayleigh mass proportional damping. The default is 0. (Units of T−1.)
  3. In the Beta field, enter a value for the βR factor to create Rayleigh stiffness proportional damping. The default is 0. (Units of T.)
  4. In the Composite field, enter a value for the fraction of critical damping to be used with this material in calculating composite damping factors for the modes. The default is 0. (This value applies only to Abaqus/Standard analyses.)
  5. In the Structural field, enter a value for the s factor to create imaginary stiffness proportional damping. The default is 0.
  6. Click OK to create the material and to close the Edit Material dialog box. Alternatively, you can select another material behavior to define from the menus in the Edit Material dialog box (see Browsing and modifying material behaviors, for more information).