DAMPING BY UNCOUPLED PARTICULATE COMPOSITES

Large damping can be achieved by suitable design of a composite material which contains a significant volume fraction of freely vibrating particles in internal cavities of its matrix.An approximate analysis of the damping behavior of such a materiel is presented. It is shown that the damping varies linearly with amplitude, inversely with the first power of the distance of motion and with the second power of (1-k), where k is the coefficient fo restitution