Performance of vertically reinforced 1-3 piezo composites for active damping of smart sandwich beams

This paper deals with the performance of vertically reinforced 1-3 piezoelectric composite material as a constraining layer for active constrained layer damping of sandwich beams. A finite element model, considering both in-plane and out-of-plane actuation of the constraining layer of the active constrained layer damping, has been developed for analyzing the active damping of sandwich beams integrated with the patches of such active constrained layer damping treatment. The analysis revealed that vertically reinforced 1-3 piezo composites, which are popularly used as sensor materials, can be used as distributed actuators of smart sandwich beam.