Optimal damping in multilayer sandwich beams

We describe some possible models for a multilayer sandwich beam consisting of alternating stiff and compliant beam layers. The stiff layers are modeled under Euler-Bernoulli assumptions while the compliant layers essentially only carry the shear. We include viscous damping in the compliant layers and consider the optimization problem of choosing the damping parameters for each layer so that the maximal asymptotic damping angle in the system eigenvalues is obtained. The solution is obtained analytically as a closed-form function of the various material parameters.