Flexural Vibration of Symmetrical Multi-Layer Beams with Viscoelastic Damping

The flexural vibrations of beams can be reduced by introducing sandwiched layers of energy-dissipating materials. The equations of motion are derived for flexural vibrations of symmetrical, multi-layer sandwich beams. Two types of beams are considered, depending on whether the central layer is energy dissipating when the number of layers will be n = 4i − 1, where i = 1, 2,…, or whether the material of the central layer is perfectly elastic when n = 4i + 1. The total number of equations of motion will be i + 1 for each type. These equations will be non-linear when the properties of the energy-dissipating materials are strain dependent. A numerical method of solution has been introduced by transforming the equations of motion into sets of non-dimensional simultaneous equations and using finite difference methods. The simplest type of beam has three layers but even this leads to a set of four simultaneous equations of the twelfth order.

It is shown as an example that the strain dependence of a typical viscoelastic material has only a second order effect upon the computed response. Experimentally determined values of frequency, phase angle and mode shapes under conditions of steady state are compared with computed data and the agreements are such that the response to excitation in flexural motion of symmetrical, multi-layer damped beams can now be calculated with confidence even for the lower modes.