The damping of beam vibrations by viscoelastic layers bearing pellets: Theory and experiment

Abstract

A number of powerful solutions for the scattering action of spherical inclusions in extended elastic media are available in the literature. These analyses are relatively general and thus are usually too complex to provide direct insight into the relations between their many design variables. Rather, they often require parametric studies based on numerical results. The present development takes instead a simpler view that focuses on the two only possible types of motion of a single underformable pellet in an incident field containing dilatational and shear waves: a translational response for the dilatational case and both pellet translation and rotation for the shear wave field. The analysis emphasizes the fact that each type of motion has an associated broad resonance and antiresonance pair about which energy dissipation is maximized. These frequencies depend on pellet mass and moment of inertia, and may therefore be controlled to increase damping within given bands of interest. Our study of flexural vibr...