Predicting damping in geometrically complex composite structures via increased interlaminar homogenisation

The widespread adoption of composite materials across the engineering sector requires that the vibration behaviour of these materials is more readily taken into account for new component designs. Current prediction methods are often prohibitively complex or expensive for such applications, or are restricted to very simple geometries. A simplified approach, shown previously by the authors to generate accurate and inexpensive predictions, is extended to geometrically more complex test cases in this work. The novel technique is shown to hold up well compared to the more established ‘layered’ approach, outperforming such predictions in some cases and highlighting the general applicability of the approach for damping predictions in general composite components.