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The stress-strain relationship of visco-elastic materials, generally used in the damping treatment of structures, can be described by two properties, such as the perfectly elastic (in-phase) stress-strain modulus and the loss factor. The values of these properties need to be determined in tension or compression for materials used as unconstrained damping layers and as anti-vibration mountings under machinery and under foundation blocks. Using a dual channel FFT analyzer, the specimen can be excited using wide band random excitation, and the properties determined from the frequency response spectra, as a continuous function of frequency, as shown in the following. Another possibility is to preload the specimen by a well-known mass, such that the preloaded damping material becomes a part of a resonant mass-spring-damper system. Damping, e.g. loss factor, is then determined from the 3 dB bandwidth of the resonance.