Performance Analysis of Finite Element and Energy Based Analytical Methods for Modeling of PCLD Treated Beams

For active/passive vibration control applications, low order models of flexible structures are always preferable. Mathematical models of passive constrained layer damping (PCLD)/active constrained layer damping (ACLD) treatment generated by energy based analytical methods are of much smaller orders as compared to finite element methods (FEM). Using these analytical methods, one can get rid of complex model reduction techniques, since these model reduction techniques are subjected to errors if applied directly to PCLD or ACLD systems. However, analytical techniques cannot be applied blindly to any PCLD system. There is significant error in loss factor prediction for certain boundary conditions. This error is also dependent on the relative thicknesses of Viscoelastic material layer, constraining layer and base beam. For certain combination of the above thicknesses and under certain boundary conditions, the models generated are useless for controller design purposes. On the other hand, FEM are highly robust and can be applied easily to any set of boundary conditions with guaranteed accuracy. Also, results predicted by this method are of high accuracy for any combinations of thicknesses of different layers. The only disadvantage of this technique is the high order of the developed model. Detailed performance comparison of both the techniques to predict the modal parameters of the PCLD treated beam is presented.