ABSTRACT
Damping and or dissipative forces play very important roles in the modelling and analysis of many systems in the natural and engineering sciences. Dissipation is generally the term used for situations where a conservative system, i.e., a system where the total mechanical energy is constant, is acted upon by friction and/or viscous forces. Damping generally refers to systems which undergo oscillatory behavior. However, for certain cases, no clear distinctions can be made. Within the context of this chapter, we will combine these into the expression damping/dissipative forces, which we denote as DDF.
