Spring Damper Design: Determine K & C for Helicopter Landing

[WaltLankor]

Homework Statement

For a Helicopter landing on an undercarriage system modeled as a single spring damper.
In principle, is it possible to determine K and C values for a single (constant rate) spring damper system given the mass of the helicopter and 2 independent scenarios of initial velocity (touch down) values each with an associated maximum allowable deceleration value. No spring length is specified. No forcing term is present.

Just trying not to waste (anymore) time heading in the wrong direction.
I'm not looking for specific solutions.


Thanks

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

 

[viscousflow]

The easiest way I see to do this is model the spring mass system as an equivalent control system where your spring constant is a gain. Set some performance parameters on the system and this would be your dampening ratio.

Now just simply design your new system to have the steady state and transient characteristics you're looking for and out pops spring constant and dampening ratio!

 

[WaltLankor]

Thanks for the reply.
I shall look into it.