Comparative Study of Damping in Pristine, Steel, and Shape Memory Alloy Hybrid Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic Composite Beams of Equivalent Stiffness

Several efforts were made over the years to control vibration of structural components made of composite materials. This paper consists of study on effect of using shape memory alloy (SMA) to increase the damping of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites. A comparative study between SMA and steel was made as reinforcement material in GFRP composites to enhance damping. Dimensions of each beam were calculated such that all the beams i.e. pristine GFRP beam, GFRP beam embedded with steel wires and GFRP beam embedded with SMA wires have same flexural stiffness and first mode of frequency of vibration. Damping ratio was measured experimentally through logarithmic decay method. Through experiments damping ratio obtained for SMA hybrid composite beam was found to be higher as compared to the pristine and steel hybrid GFRP composite beams.