(a) Illustrate critical damping and its uses.
(b) A horizontal spring mass system with coulomb damping has a mass of 5 Kg attached to a spring of stiffness 1KN/m. if the coefficient of friction is 0.03, determine :-
(i) Number of cycles corresponding to 50% reduction in amplitude if the initial amplitude is 5.0cm.
(ii) Frequency of free oscillations.