Effect of particulate tougheners on the damping of composite laminates

Rubber is commonly added to composites to increase the toughness. This research investigates adding toughening particles to graphite/epoxy composites for the purpose of increasing the vibrational damping. Adding toughening particles to the interlaminar regions of graphite/epoxy is shown to significantly increase the loss factor, although the increase is much less than can be achieved by embedding a viscoelastic damping layer. The bending stiffness and shear modulus, however, are much higher for the samples with embedded particles than samples with a viscoelastic layer. The addition of damping particles could therefore be used for stiffness-critical parts.