Nonlinear dynamic behaviour of a preloaded thin sandwich plate incorporating visco-hyperelastic layers

The nonlinear dynamic behaviour of preloaded traditional multilayer plates incorporating visco-hyperelastic materials is investigated. The visco-hyperelastic material was confined between stiff layers and worked as a damping layer. The full structure is submitted to shear vibrations under a compression preload. We present herein a nonlinear model describing the tangent dynamic shear modulus as function of both preload and frequency. A Navier approach is used to calculate the stress and the deformation fields which are written by a transfer matrix formulation. The dynamic shear modulus for elastomers is expressed by a nonlinear visco-hyperelastic model based on a deformation energy density. The effects of the elastomer's nonlinear behaviour, the frequency and the preload on the structure's overall dynamic shear modulus is the main object of this study. Verification of the model is performed on visco-hyperelastic multilayer through a series of dynamic shear tests under various compression preload levels. A comparison with both finite element calculations and discreet models is discussed.