Multi-scale damping characteristics of carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite negative Poisson's ratio structure

Carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) composites are highly promising materials for various applications, offering an advantageous combination of light weight, high strength, good impact resistance, superior damping, and recyclability. Integrating these composites with negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) structures presents a significant opportunity to develop novel designs with enhanced stiffness and vibration damping performance. However, existing research on the damping characteristics of CFRTP-NPR composite structures remains limited. In this study, a series of CFRTP and carbon fiber-reinforced thermoset (CFRTS) NPR composite structures, fabricated as double-arrow corrugated sandwich panels, were designed and manufactured. Modal analysis tests were conducted to systematically investigate their damping loss factor across different vibration modes. Furthermore, a novel multi-scale model was developed by combining the Generalized Method of Cells (GMC) and the Representative Volume Element (RVE) with the Modal Strain Energy (MSE) method to predict the damping characteristics of the composite sandwich panels. The multi-scale prediction results demonstrated excellent agreement with the experimental data. Key findings indicate that the CFRTP composites generally exhibit higher damping properties compared to their CFRTS counterparts. This work provides a reliable multi-scale methodology and a valuable reference for the damping design of composite materials and structures.