Tension Element Vibration Damping

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have designed a circumferential scissor spring mechanism, NASA engineers have developed a new approach to mitigating unwanted structural vibrations. NASA’s method is fundamentally different from conventional passive and active vibration damping methods widely used today. Tension Element Vibration Damping uses disruptive modal coupling between two structures, each with their own vibrational behavior, to proactively provide vibration damping for one or both of the structures.