Preliminary investigation of the damping effect of bubble levels used in dynamic conditions

¹ CNAM (LCM), 61 rue du Landy, 93210 La Plaine-Saint-Denis, France
² LNE (LCM), 29 avenue Roger Hennequin, 78197 Trappes Cedex, France

^a e-mail: patrick.pinot@cnam.fr

Received: 14 June 2012
Revised: 27 August 2012
Accepted: 6 September 2012
Published online: 10 October 2012

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary experimental investigation of the damping effect of bubble levels on the rotation of pendulous systems. The damping efficiency of such a level is directly correlated to the energy dissipated by the bubble motion. This energy depends on the physical characteristics of the bubble level such as the radius of curvature of the tube, the liquid properties and the bubble length. This study demonstrates that a bubble level can be used to damp the oscillations of dynamic mechanical systems. In particular, commercially available bubble levels might prove suitable for applications where one needs to damp efficiently oscillating systems for which the initial potential energy is less than a hundred times the energy dissipated by the bubble displacement for the first oscillation.