Nonlinear vibration of viscoelastic sandwich beams by the harmonic balance and finite element methods

This paper deals with geometrically nonlinear vibrations of sandwich beams with viscoelastic materials. For this purpose, a new finite element formulation has been developed, in which a zig-zag model is used to describe the displacement field. The viscoelastic behaviour is handled by using hereditary integrals and their relationships with complex moduli. An efficient solution procedure based on the harmonic balance method is also developed. To demonstrate its abilities, various problems of nonlinear vibrations of sandwich beams are considered. First, the results derived from the proposed approach are compared with those of nonlinear dynamic analyses using direct time integration and to experimental data. Then, the influence of the vibration amplitude on the damping properties of sandwich beams is investigated. The effect of an initial axial strain is also examined.