Dynamic analysis of slip damping in clamped layered beams with non-uniform pressure distribution at the interface

Slip damping is a mechanism exploited for dissipating noise and vibration energy in aerodynamic and machine structures. Such slip in layered structures can be simulated by applying pressure to hold the members together at the interface. However, while most analyses of the mechanism assume an environment of uniform pressure at the interface, experiments to date have confirmed that this is rarely the case. There have been recent attempts to relax the restriction of uniform interface pressure to allow for more realistic pressure profiles that are encountered in practice. However, such works have mostly been limited to static loading for which it has been established that the interfacial pressure gradient does play a dominant role in modulating the level of energy dissipation. This paper is an attempt to extend such analyses to account for cases of realistic dynamic loading that drive such structural vibration in the first instance. In particular, it is shown that under dynamic loads, frequency variation more than non-uniformity in the interface pressure can have significant effect on both the energy dissipation and the logarithmic damping decrement associated with the mechanism of slip damping in such layered structures.