Viscoelastic Behaviour of Element of Particle Damper: Experimental and Numerical Study

This paper considers a spherical particle damper that is subjected to impact loading. An experiment using a viscoanalyser machine was performed to obtain the viscoelastic properties (Young’s modulus and loss factor) at any temperature and any frequency. This procedure extracts the master curve for the viscoelastic material. A suitable Prony series/parameters (Generalised Maxwell equation) model to represent viscoelastic behaviour is fitted to the master curve data. These Prony series are used to define the material properties of the particle in the finite element (FE) analysis. To validate the FE model, the stiffness contact property for particle is compared with Hertz contact theory. A study of the impact response of viscoelastic particles was carried out to test the ability of the Prony series in conjunction with the FE model to replicate real behaviour. The FE model was also validated using an impact/rebound experiment. The comparison between FE model and experiment shows fairly good agreement.