High Stiffness Passive Damping Concepts Using Materials or Innovative Mechanisms

This effort will investigate a recent breakthrough in damping materials developed under AFOSR sponsorship at UCLA for potential application to launch vehicle and spacecraft component vibration mitigation. CSA believes that the proposed effort is unique inthat it offers, for the first time, a practical high performance passive solution to the vibration suppression needs of several Air Force applications. More specifically, this effort concentrates on improved launch environment mitigation methods forsensitive payloads such as those envisioned for surveillance and directed energy applications. The focus of the investigation will be on a new magnetostrictive particulate composite (MPC) material, which exhibits high amounts of damping via stress-induceddomain wall motion of a magentostricive particulate cured under magnetic field in a host matrix material. Initial data suggests that the material has tremendous promise as a lightweight, high-stiffness, high-damping multifunctional material. This effortwill examine, optimize, and test the material in the context of the launch environment application.Goal of the research is to develop and demonstrate a multifunctional composite material that has both high stiffness and high damping. Commercialapplications for such a material range from high performance lightweight aerospace structures to automotive, sporting goods, and other industrial applications.