Experimental investigation on vibration characteristics of woven carbon fabric-reinforced composite beams of various cross-sectional shapes

Abstract

Vibration characteristics of carbon/epoxy composite beams await increased attention in structural industries such as aerospace, automotive, machine tools, marine industries. The objective of the present work is to investigate and analyze the shape effects of carbon/epoxy composite beams on vibration behavior. Specimens were fabricated using woven carbon fabric for basic shapes: I, box, and channel sections by hand layup method. The fabricated beams were subjected to impulse frequency response test under cantilever and fixed-end boundary conditions for free vibration test up to 3.5 kHz. Vibration response was measured using piezoelectric transducer and was recorded using computer-controlled data acquisition system for analyzing its behavior. The vibration characteristic of beams with various shapes shows modified performance under different boundary conditions. The experimental mode shapes and modal frequencies of beams are discussed and compared for successive resonance sets. At a lower frequency range of 3.5 kHz, the experimental modal responses of beam that were compared with modal results of finite element method analysis using software ANSYS V12® exhibited acceptable deviation in error maximum of up to 8.2%. Further, all deformed mode shapes of various shaped beams tested at increased frequency level of 12 kHz using finite element software were also observed and discussed.

Keywords

Woven carbon fabric free vibration vibration spectrum damping ratio mode shape modal frequency cross-sectional effect

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