ABSTRACT:
Vibration damping has gained importance for achieving improved vibration and noise control, dynamic stability, fatigue and impact resistance in advanced engineering systems. In the present work, the effect of natural rubber particle inclusions in epoxy glass fibre composites, on the mechanical and damping properties of epoxy glass fibre composites is investigated. Test specimens are fabricated with inclusion of natural rubber particles of different sizes and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) is carried out for storage modulus and loss factors (tan d) to study the influence of size of the particle rubber inclusions on these properties at various frequencies keeping temperature constant and at various temperatures keeping frequency constant. The analysis is carried out for two different conditions in 3-point bending and in shear. Among the selected particle sizes 0.254mm exhibits highest damping with a little reduction in stroge modulus.