  Man-made slender structures are known to be sensitive to high levels of
vibration, due to their flexibility, which often cause irreversible damage. In
nature, trees repeatedly endure large amplitudes of motion, mostly caused by
strong climatic events, yet with minor or no damage in most cases. A new
damping mechanism inspired by the architecture of trees is here identified and
characterized in the simplest tree-like structure, a Y-shape branched
structure. Through analytical and numerical analyses of a simple
two-degree-of-freedom model, branching is shown to be the key ingredient in
this protective mechanism that we call damping-by-branching. It originates in
the geometrical nonlinearities so that it is specifically efficient to damp out
large amplitudes of motion. A more realistic model, using flexible beam
approximation, shows that the mechanism is robust. Finally, two bioinspired
architectures are analyzed, showing significant levels of damping achieved via
branching with typically 30% of the energy being dissipated in one oscillation.
This concept of damping-by-branching is of simple practical use in the design
of slender flexible structures.
