Beam dampers for damping the vibrations of the skin of reinforced structures
First Claim
1. In a reinforced skin structure, wherein a skin is supported by spaced apart reinforcing elements, the improvement comprising:
- beam dampers attached to said skin between said reinforcing elements for damping vibrations of said skin, each of said beam dampers including;
a stiff, lightweight elongate beam formed so as to resist bending in at least one plane and including an attachment plate lying orthogonal to said at least one plane; and
,a layer of material that converts vibration energy into heat when deformed by vibration, said material located on one face of said attachment plate of said beam for attaching said plate to said skin such that said at least one plane in which said beam resists bending lies transverse to said skin, resulting in a thickness deformation of said layer of material when said skin vibrates, said thickness deformation of said layer of material converting vibration energy into heat to damp said skin vibration.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Beam dampers comprising a stiff, lightweight, elongate beam and layer of viscoelastic material located along an attachment flange of the beam are disclosed. The flanges of the beam is attached by the layer of viscoelastic material to the skin of a structure whose skin vibrations are to be damped. While a beam having a cross-sectional I-shape is preferred, other cross-sectional shapes can be used, such as L, Z, U and T-shapes. Regardless of their shapes, the beam acts as a constraining element for the viscoelastic attachment layer. The beam is oriented such that it is stiff in a plane transverse to the plane of the skin, resulting in thickness deformation of the layer of viscoelastic material (rather than shear deformation) converting vibration energy into heat.
134 Citations
30 Claims
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1. In a reinforced skin structure, wherein a skin is supported by spaced apart reinforcing elements, the improvement comprising:
- beam dampers attached to said skin between said reinforcing elements for damping vibrations of said skin, each of said beam dampers including;
a stiff, lightweight elongate beam formed so as to resist bending in at least one plane and including an attachment plate lying orthogonal to said at least one plane; and
,a layer of material that converts vibration energy into heat when deformed by vibration, said material located on one face of said attachment plate of said beam for attaching said plate to said skin such that said at least one plane in which said beam resists bending lies transverse to said skin, resulting in a thickness deformation of said layer of material when said skin vibrates, said thickness deformation of said layer of material converting vibration energy into heat to damp said skin vibration. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
- beam dampers attached to said skin between said reinforcing elements for damping vibrations of said skin, each of said beam dampers including;
Specification