Simultaneously high stiffness and damping in a class of wavy layered composites

We present results for stiffness and damping prediction in a class of layered, wavy, metal–polymer composites that exceed conventionally published stiffness-damping maps (The Wang–Lakes line, see [14]). These composites are realized by judiciously placing selected, wavy, metal sheets that sandwich an ultra-thin layer of polymer. Stacks of alternating metal–polymer layered composites, when compressed axially under harmonic loading exhibit not only very high stiffness but also very high damping leading to an “ideal” combination of properties for a variety of structural applications. In this paper, a finite element based study has been presented to predict the mechanical stiffness and damping of such composites. It has been shown that reducing the thickness of the viscous polymer layer not only increases the stiffness of such composites but also improves the damping.