Passively damped structural composite materials using resistively shunted piezoceramic fibers

The development of damped structural materials is an area of current research with potential for high rewards. Resistively shunted piezoceramic fibers used as reinforcement in a structural composite mate-rial offer the potential to significantly increase vibration damping capability. Available data indicate the predictable nature of this electroelastic damping mechanism, an important concern in design. This arti-cle addresses the current status of an effort to develop damped composites using resistively shunted pie-zoceramic fibers, including modeling aspects, performance limits, design guidelines, and fabrication issues. Initial design guidelines take the form of a modified modal strain energy method. With longitudi-nally poled fibers, peak damping loss factors of 12% are attainable in principle, even at relatively low (30%) piezoceramic fiber volume fractions. Some 30-μm diameter piezoelectric fibers have been pro-duced using a solgel method, and details of poling and shunting are under investigation.