Evaluation of Modal Damping of Graphite/ Epoxy Laminated Composites

The damping of an engineering structure is important in many aspects of noise and vibration control, fatigue endurance and so on, since it controls the amplitude of resonant vibration esponse. Damping in fiber-reinforced composite aterials is highly tailorable with respect to constituent roperties, fiber volume fractions and ply orientation angles.To this end an experimental analysis of the damping of unidirectional graphite reinforced epoxy composites was carried out. Damping characteristics of laminates are analysed experimentally using impulse technique. Composite laminate were made using the traditional hand-lay -up process. Experimental dynamic tests were carried out using specimens with different fiber orientations and three different boundary conditions and different thickness