Characterisation by Inverse Techniques of Elastic, Viscoelastic and Piezoelectric Properties of Anisotropic Sandwich Adaptive Structures

In this article we present recent developments regarding parameter estimation in sandwich structures with viscoelastic frequency dependent core and elastic laminated skin layers, with piezoelectric patch sensors and actuators bonded to the exterior surfaces of the sandwich. The frequency dependent viscoelastic properties of the core material are modelled using fractional derivative models, with unknown parameters that are to be estimated by an inverse technique, using experimentally measured natural frequencies and associated modal loss factors. The inverse problem is formulated as a constrained minimisation problem, and gradient based optimization techniques are employed. Applications are presented and discussed, focused on the identification of viscoelastic frequency dependent core material properties.