Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / Paper 2 / Section B / B6 / Practical damping choice

To settle quickly after loading, critical damping is preferable to the supplied weak damper:Using the strict-bound mass instead changes this by less than $1\%$. This eliminates free ringing while avoiding the slow tail of severe overdamping. In the stipulated external-force model, greater damping also reduces the steady forced amplitude; there is no finite optimum based solely on that amplitude. A critical or near-critical value is a practical compromise for rapid settling. If the disturbance were specified as floor displacement transmitted through the legs, damping would introduce an additional transmission tradeoff, but that is a different forcing model.