The reduction of vibratory energy transmission has been the subject of investigation within past years. The present paper is concerned with the increase of the internal damping in mechanical systems as a method for their vibration control. The inclusion of viscoelastic materials within the structural configurations of the mechanical system is proposed to increase its internal damping.
Analytical solutions are presented for the fully damped sandwich beam. In addition, laboratory experiments have been performed to verify the analytical predictions. Moreover, the optimal damping distribution for partially damped and the case of rigidamped sandwich beams are considered experimentally as a practical design proposition.