  We study the response of a single degree of freedom mechanical system
composed of a primary mass, M, a linear spring, a viscous damper and a particle
damper. The particle damper consists in a prismatic enclosure of variable
height that contains spherical grains (total mass m_p). Contrary to what it has
been discussed in previous experimental and simulation studies, we show that,
for small containers, the system does not approach the fully detuned mass limit
in a monotonous way. Rather, the system increases its effective mass up and
above M+m_p before reaching this expected limiting value (which is associated
with the immobilization of the particles due to a very restrictive container).
Moreover, we show that a similar effect appears in the tall container limit
where the system reaches effective masses below the expected asymptotic value
M. We present a discussion on the origin of these overshoot responses and the
consequences for industrial applications.
