Characteristics of enhanced active constrained layer damping treatments with edge elements, part 2: System analysis

This paper presents some important characteristics of enhanced active constrained layer damping (EACL) treatments for vibration controls. Specific interests are on understanding how the edge elements will influence the active action authority, the passive damping ability and their combined effects in EACL. Analysis results indicate that the edge elements can significantly improve the active action transmissibility of the current active constrained layer damping (ACL) treatment. Although the edge elements will slightly reduce the viscoelastic material (VEM) passive damping, the EACL will still have significant damping from the VEM. Combining the overall active and passive actions, the new EACL with sufficiently stiff edge elements not only could achieve better performance with less control effort compared to the current ACL system, but also could outperform the purely active system. With careful analysis, we can map out the required critical edge element stiffness for successful designs. In addition, analysis also shows that the EACL treatment is a more robust design. That is, it could outperform both the purely active and passive systems throughout a much broader design space than the current ACL configuration. With these desirable characteristics, the EACL could be used to realize an overall optimal active-passive hybrid system.