Active damping of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of sandwich plates with fuzzy fiber reinforced composite facings

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the analysis of active constrained layer damping (ACLD) of geometrically nonlinear vibrations of sandwich plates with facings composed of fuzzy fiber reinforced composite (FFRC). FFRC is a novel composite where the short carbon nanotubes (CNTs) which are either straight or wavy are radially grown on the periphery of the long continuous carbon fiber reinforcements. The plane of waviness of the CNTs is coplanar with the plane of carbon fiber. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment is composed of the vertically/obliquely reinforced 1–3 piezoelectric composites (PZCs) while the constrained viscoelastic layer has been sandwiched between the substrate and the PZC layer. The Golla–Hughes–McTavish method has been implemented to model the constrained viscoelastic layer of the ACLD treatment in time domain. A three dimensional nonlinear finite element model of smart FFRC sandwich plates integrated with ACLD patches has been developed to investigate the performance of these patches for controlling the geometrically nonlinear vibrations of these plates. This study reveals that the performance of the ACLD patches for controlling the geometrically nonlinear vibrations of the sandwich plates is better in the case of the facings composed of laminated FFRC than that in the case of the facings made of conventional orthotropic laminated composite. Particular emphasis has been placed on investigating the effect of the variation of piezoelectric fiber orientation angle on the performance of the ACLD treatment. The research carried out in this paper brings to light that even the wavy CNTs can be properly utilized for attaining structural benefits from the exceptional elastic properties of CNTs.