The effect of aspect ratios and edge conditions on the optimal damping design of thin soft core sandwich plates and beams

An optimal design is presented to maximize the fundamental damping loss factor of sandwich rectangle plates and beams with general boundary conditions. With an extensive development of the classical laminate theory and energy method, the loss factor of sandwich laminate with a thin viscoelastic core is deduced. For sandwich-laminated plates and beams, the effect of fiber orientation of the orthotropic layer on the loss factor has been studied. The aspect ratio is very important in structural design for plates and beams. In this work, the effects of aspect ratios of sandwich laminates on optimal fundamental loss factors are investigated. The maximum fundamental loss factor and optimal fiber orientation have been obtained and analyzed for different sandwich laminates with the aspect ratio as a variable.