Investigation of the nonlinear behaviour of damping of aluminum foam core sandwich composite beams

Damping is a useful parameter for controlling vibration and movement in the design of the structure. In many structural applications, damping provides sufficient energy dissipation by suppressing resonant amplitudes of vibration. The present paper is concerned with the utilization of the finite element-based modal strain energy method for predicting the modal loss factor of laminated composite beams. Finite element analysis is performed to study the effects of layerwise in-plane displacements on specific damping capacity for Duocel aluminum foam core sandwich composite beams. The core was sandwiched between two face sheet graphite/epoxy laminates with a constant thickness. A numerical modelling of the damping response in axisymmetrical conditions was performed using the ABAQUS commercial software. All calculations about the theoretical approach were performed using the MATLAB Version 7.8 (Mathworks Inc.). A good match between the finite element modelling and the theoretical approach was obtained.