A new impulse mechanical spectrometer to study the dynamic mechanical properties of filaments

A new impulse mechanical spectrometer to measure mechanical damping of filaments is described and first experimental results are briefly reported. The time-domain spectrum of a free decay induced by a light impulse mechanical excitation is analyzed by a laser beam diffraction technique and numerical analysis of the data. This technique is successfully used to measure the logarithmic decrement, delta, and the resonant frequency, integral(0), of a bar filament sample fixed at one end.