The Effect of Structural Damping on the Forced Vibrations of Cylindrical Sandwich Shells

Abstract

This paper presents an examination of the effects of structural damping on the axisymmetric vibrations of a cylindrical sandwich shell. It is shown that the use of core materials with high damping properties can result in large reductions in resonant response over conventional materials. The radial vibration of the shell resulting from a time harmonic radial load is first calculated by an exact method. The radial vibration is then calculated by an approximate formula, which requires only a knowledge of the damping properties and the natural (undamped) modes. In numerical examples the resonant vibrations of two steel-faced cylinders are compared. One has a polymeric, the other an elastomeric core. The results indicate that for the assumed conditions they are both effective for suppressing resonant vibration, the polymeric core being generally more effective than the elastomeric core.