Experimental and Analytical Investigation of Carbon Fiber Cable Vibration Damping

For structures deployed in space using cables where vibration damping is critical for structural stability, cable damping is significant to structural performance. To provide a better understanding of damping mechanism of carbon fiber cables, this paper describes the tests of cable damping under different experimental configurations (different cable length, tension and type), and presents an analytical method for modeling and therefore predicting cable damping. The method is developed using simplified but physically realistic assumptions on material constitutive properties and geometric compatibility conditions, and considered the contact forces and friction between helical wires. The results of the proposed method and several related issues are discussed and compared with those from experiments. These results show that the proposed method is useful and applicable for predicting cable damping value and its variation with cable tension, length and type of the cables.