Assessing the behavior of highly damped multilayered structures with controllable patches using condensation models

This study presents the finite element modeling of an adaptive sandwich structure that can be configured to exhibit various behaviors depending on the arrangement of the temperature fields in its core, which is made of a shape memory polymer with outstanding damping capacity. The sandwich structure is divided into patches corresponding to homogeneous temperature fields. Each patch is modeled as an equivalent thin plate using a condensation model and the effective properties are determined by preserving the real part of bending, shear (transverse) and extension (quasi-longitudinal) wavenumbers. The damping loss factor is estimated independently using the forced response from an analytical discrete model of the sandwich structure and the Power Input Method. Two different configurations of the sandwich structure are presented: in the first, the modal behavior of the sandwich structure is slightly affected; In the second, vibrations are reduced throughout the frequency range. The use of a suitable condensation model can be particularly interesting for solving optimization problems and determining optimal configurations. The behavior of the sandwich structure can be evaluated with reduced computational cost whenever an update of the temperature fields is required.