Damping Capabilities of Viscoelastic Composites for Active/Passive Constrained Layer Damping of the Plate Vibration: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Purpose: This work presents the comparative damping performance of conventional viscoelastic material (VEM), 0–3 viscoelastic composite (VEC), and viscoelastic particulate composite (VEPC) damping layers in the active/passive constrained layer damping mechanism for plate vibration. Methods: In the present study, passive and active–passive damping mechanisms, namely constrained layer damping (CLD) and active constrained layer damping (ACLD) are analysed to control the plate vibration. The CLD mechanism is achieved in both symmetric and asymmetric sandwich plate configurations where damping material lies at the core. In contrast, for the ACLD mechanism, the top face layer in the asymmetric sandwich plate is replaced by an extensional-mode piezoelectric actuator. A closed-loop finite element (FE) model is first derived for the damping analysis of sandwich plates following the layer-wise first-order shear deformation theory and velocity-feedback control strategy for the ACLD mechanism. Subsequently, the utilization of the same FE model for damping analysis of the CLD mechanism of symmetric and asymmetric sandwich plates is demonstrated for each of the three kinds of damping layers. Results and Conclusions: The modal loss factors and frequency responses for each of the three kinds of damping layers in CLD/ACLD treated plates are estimated for the comparative study. The results reveal that damping performance of 0–3 VEC or VEPC layer in CLD/ACLD mechanism is significantly more than that for the conventional VEM layer. The VEPC layer may be used for the CLD mechanism in a symmetric sandwich configuration, while 0–3 VEC is a suitable one for the same damping mechanism through an asymmetric sandwich configuration. Moreover, 0–3 VEC may also be more suitable for the ACLD mechanism due to the magnification in active–passive damping performance compared to VEPC.