"mechanical damper"?

Question

How to design a mechanical damper? What are the considerations? dimension? force?

Answer 1

A mechanical damper is a device that supplies reactive force proportional to input velocity (as opposed to acceleration or position).

Some dampers use friction, but friction is not linearly proportional to velocity (it is at very low velocities, but then flattens). Some devices use viscous damping. This would be like a piston in a cylinder filled with a fluid, said piston having a hole in it.

This device is a much more accurate true damper, as the reactive force is proportional to the flow rate through the orifice (the hole in the piston) which is proportional to the pressure in the cylinder, which is proportional to velocity (some non-linearity of these devices is associated with viscosity change in the fluid due to heating and any cavitation that may occur).

Considerations are that your travel has to be long enough for your application, and your connecting rod has to be sized to not collapse or buckle under load.