A forced-vibration technique for measurement of material damping

This article describes a technique for measuring material damping in specimens under forced flexural vibration. Although the method was developed for testing fiber-reinforced composite materials, it could be used for any structural material. The test specimen is a double-cantilever beam clamped at its midpoint and excited in resonant flexural vibration by an electromagnetic shaker. Under steady state conditions, material damping is defined in terms of the ratio of input energy to strain energy stored in the specimen. If external losses are negligible, the input energy must equal the energy dissipated in the specimen. Input energy and strain energy are found from measured specimen dimensions, resonant frequency, input acceleration and bending strain. Problems associated with minimization of external energy losses in the apparatus and verification of measurements are discussed in detail. Measured damping of aluminum-alloy calibration specimens shows good agreement with calculated thermoelastic damping. Examples of measured damping showing amplitude and frequency dependence in fiber-reinforced plastic materials are presented.