Vibration-damping structural component

Abstract

An improvement to a vibration-damping structural component of the type hag viscoelastic material sandwiched between two outer structural layers of stiffness material is disclosed. An inner layer of stiffness material having two predominant surfaces is positioned between the two outer structural layers of stiffness material and is fixed along an edge of one of the two predominant surfaces to one of the two outer structural layers of stiffness material along a line thereon corresponding to a nodal line of vibration. The remainder of the two predominant surfaces is fixed to the viscoelastic material. During flexural vibrations, the inner layer displaces in-plane with respect to the inner surfaces of the outer layers, causing greater shearing in the viscoelastic material, and therefore causing greater vibration damping in the structural component.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.