Enhanced Composite Damping Through Engineered Interfaces

Material damping is important in the design of structures as it limits vibration amplitudes, increases fatigue life, and affects impact resistance. This is particularly true for composite materials, which are currently used extensively in applications that experience frequent dynamic loading. Furthermore, the damping capacity of composites can be significantly greater than that of standard engineering materials. Like other performance parameters of composites (e.g., stiffness, strength, density), the effective damping capacity of composite materials is dependent not only on the damping properties of the constituent materials, but also microstructural details such as fiber volume fraction, fiber orientation, ply stack up, fiber packing array, and weave pattern in woven composites. Therefore, like other performance parameters, composite damping capacity can be engineered.