Experimental investigation of vibration damping in steel foam sandwich structures
Date Issued
2017
Abstract
This research project is an experimental investigation on the structural dynamic properties and vibration damping of steel foam sandwich beam specimens. The sandwich specimens comprise DC01 mild steel plates and steel foam hollow spheres bonded together with a thermosetting epoxy. Specimens included single-phase steel foam core sandwich specimens and two-phase specimens with semi-filled steel foam cores with different volumes of lubricant oil. Three different tests were performed, specifically sine sweep over a range of frequencies, white noise and shock. The results show very good correlations in the estimation of the harmonic frequencies and promising damping ratios for the single-phase cores with further improvements in the presence of two-phase cores.