Electrical analogous in viscoelasticity

• Mechanical models of materials viscoelasticity behavior are approached by fractional calculus.
• Electrical analogous circuits of fractional hereditary materials are proposed.
• Validation is demonstrated by using modal analysis.
• Electrical analogous can help in better revealing the real behavior of fractional hereditary materials.

In this paper, electrical analogous models of fractional hereditary materials are introduced. Based on recent works by the authors, mechanical models of materials viscoelasticity behavior are firstly approached by using fractional mathematical operators. Viscoelastic models have elastic and viscous components which are obtained by combining springs and dashpots. Various arrangements of these elements can be used, and all of these viscoelastic models can be equivalently modeled as electrical circuits, where the spring and dashpot are analogous to the capacitance and resistance, respectively. The proposed models are validated by using modal analysis. Moreover, a comparison with numerical experiments based on finite difference time domain method shows that, for long time simulations, the correct time behavior can be obtained only with modal analysis. The use of electrical analogous in viscoelasticity can better reveal the real behavior of fractional hereditary materials.