Vibration and damping of carbon fiber reinforced polymer orthogonal lattice truss sandwich panels manufactured by a new manufacturing process

A new method of fabricating carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) orthogonal lattice truss sandwich panels is proposed. Inner trusses are inserted into outer trusses. Three structures are prepared using different adhesives: epoxy resin, ethylene–vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA), and nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR). The mode shapes, natural frequencies, and loss factors of the structures are tested and predicted using the finite element modal strain energy method with a solid model and two shell models, respectively. The shell stiffness matrixes are calculated using representative volume element (RVE) method and analytical method. The results show that these three theories can accurately predict the sandwich panels with epoxy or EVA adhesive, while the sandwich panel with rubber layer cannot be accurately predicted. The strain energy composition, shell stiffness matrices, influence of node offset and influence of adhesive layer thicknesses are studied. The EVA adhesive improves the loss factors of the structure within an acceptable reduction of natural frequency.