Eddy Current Braking of a Simple Pendulum

edosmond

I'm setting up an experiment and I 'd like to somehow quantify the effects of magnetic braking on a simple pendulum.

At the moment, I have a curved sheet of Aluminium that I will swing freely between two magnets set up in yoke (horseshoe magnets). The magnets induce eddy currents in the aluminium and cause damping. I also have an Aluminium sheet that has slits cut in it to remove the eddy currents, and I want to compare the two pendula.

The problem is, I'm not well versed in anything like this other than very 'ideal' pendula i.e. with no resistance and I'm struggling to think of a way to quantify the difference between the behaviour of the two pendula. So far my research has only uncovered very complicated differential equations involving damping coefficients and damping ratio.

Need to start tomorrow, any thoughts?