Mechanical properties of nanocomposite laminated structure and its sensibility to modal analysis procedure

In this work, tensile and shear modulus, as well as Poisson's ratio of a woven orthotropic nanocomposite plate were determined from vibration data. Plates used in the experiment were 16 layers S2-glass/epoxy composite manufactured by vacuum assisted wet lay-up. The nanocomposite plate was obtained by adding 0%, 1%, 2%, 5% and 10% nanoclays in weight to the epoxy matrix. A Finite Element model of the composite plate combined with a gradient method was applied to obtain an approximate numerical solution to experimental data in order to estimate the mechanical properties. Two different modal procedures were employed: the Laser Anemometry and Hammer test. A modal analysis was made in both cases to determine structural mode shape and associated frequencies, modal and mechanical properties for different nanoclay composite plates, as well as assessing its sensitivity to Modal Analysis.