Experimental study of parameters influencing the damping of particulate, fibre-reinforced, hybrid, and sandwich composites

Abstract

Abstract In this study, we focus on the experimental determination of damping expressed by logarithmic decrement, damping ratio, and loss factor of particulate, continuous- and discontinuous- fibre reinforced, hybrid, and sandwich composites using the free vibration decay effect evaluated using the logarithmic decrement and half-power bandwidth methods. Composite materials with damping properties of magnitude several orders higher than that of traditional engineering materials are well known. However, in one study, we present different types of composite materials with different damping properties depending on various parameters such as ply angle, volume fraction, material configuration, reinforcement geometry, temperature, etc., which provide varied options to design the material arrangement of dynamically loaded components to maximize damping. Moreover, in this study, we determine typical time and frequency domain curves for individual types of analysed composites.