Precision Engineering

Journal of the International Societies for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology

26 (2002) 430441

Concrete-based constrained layer damping

Eberhard Bamberg a, , Alexander Slocum b
a Room 3-468, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
b Room 3-445, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Received 31 August 2001; accepted 12 April 2002

Abstract
This paper describes a novel structural damping method that allows a fabricated (welded) machine tool structure to be designed for
minimum cost and maximum dynamic stiffness comparable to polymer concrete structures. The damping method is a constrained layer
damping (CLD) design where the layers are replicated in place using expanding concrete inside of viscoelastic damping inserts. The novel
design is highly flexible and economical while providing excellent damping for a wide range of structural shapes.
2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Constrained layer damping; Replication; ShearDamperTM ; Viscoelastic material; Structural damping

1. Introduction A viscoelastic material is sandwiched between the structure

Welded machine tool structures provide easy scalabil-
ity in terms of size and outstanding flexibility in terms of
rapid design and fabrication. The high thermal diffusivity
of steel minimizes temperature gradients within the struc-
ture, thereby reducing the effects of warping considerably.
However, damping of the structure is a very critical is-
sue. Unlike cast iron, polymer concrete, or granite-based
components, welded steel plates have virtually no inter-
nal damping (Fig. 1). The conventional approach of filling
various cavities of the structure with concrete or sand can
add damping but also a great deal of mass without any
accompanying stiffness.
2. Constrained layer damping (CLD)
A better approach is the use of CLD, a concept first
conceived by Plass [1] in 1957 and later by Ross et al. [2]
whose strain-energy approach for a three-layer plate under
sinusoidal bending deflections became known as the RUK
theory. The principle behind such a system is the following:
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-617-452-2604;
fax: +1-253-423-6954.
E-mail address: bamberg@mit.edu (E. Bamberg).
and one or more constraining layers (Fig. 2). Kinetic energy
from relative motion between the structure and the constrain-
ing layer as it occurs during bending or twisting gets dissi-
pated by the viscoelastic layer. This mechanism introduces
damping into the system, thereby limiting the structures
response to excitation frequencies near its modes [3,4].
3. Concrete-cast damping design
The concrete-cast CLD design provides a novel solution
to an existing internal damping patent, the ShearDamperTM
[5,6]. Instead of using expensive epoxy to fit steel con-
straining layers made from a slotted steel tube to the inside
of a hollow structure (Fig. 3), the new design makes use
of a much simpler process. The constraining layers are
replicated in-place by using expanding concrete to fill four
tubular, viscoelastic inserts, which are placed between the
inside of the structure and the outside of a support tube. The
inserts are made from viscoelastic ISODAMPTM C-1002,
(EAR Specialty Composites, Indianapolis, IN) with a thick-
ness specifically tuned towards the individual structure and
a perimeter that ensures that the layers can form completely
as illustrated in Fig. 4 (patent pending).
Eliminating voids is absolutely crucial, otherwise the
concrete, as it expands during curing, cannot create the

0141-6359/02/$ see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 4 1 - 6 3 5 9 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 2 0 - 4
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 431

Fig. 1. Loss factors (source: Lazan, 1969).

Fig. 2. Principle of CLD.

pressure required to keep the constraining layers firmly stiffness of the constraining layers is tuned to the stiffness
in place. Therefore, sufficient expansion of the concrete of the structure. For this purpose, Marsh and Hale [7] in-
is an essential element of this design and is achieved by troduced the stiffness ratio r, the ratio between the sum of
adding 1% Intraplast-NTM (SIKA Corp., Reading, MA) to the components stiffness with respect to the system neutral
the concrete mixture. This expanding grout agent contains axis and the sum of the components stiffness with respect
an aluminum powder that oxidizes during the curing of the to their own neutral axes, respectively. The complex goal of
concrete, thereby producing little hydrogen bubbles which maximizing damping is then reduced to maximizing the ra-
counteract the concretes tendency to shrink. tio r. Moments of inertia and location of center of stiffness
for various designs are given in Tables 13 (Figs. 57).
3.1. Damping performance

El El0 Ei Ai (yi y )2
r= = i
(1)
El0 i Ei li
The performance of such a system is determined by the
loss factor of the viscoelastic material and how well the From this simple Eq. (1) we take that constraining layers
should be as far away as possible from the system neutral
axis, but this, of course, is limited by the fact that as an
internal system dimensions cannot exceed that of the inside
of the structure.
According to Marsh and Hale, the loss factor of such a
system can then be determined as:
v r
= (2)
1 + (2 + r) + (1 + r) 2 (1 + v2 )
where v is the loss factor of the damping material. The
damping factor is given as:


Gv i bi /ti (yi y1 )2 2
=
Leff (3)
i Ei Ai (yi y )
2
Fig. 3. The conventional ShearDamperTM .
432 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441

Fig. 4. Concrete-cast damping design (patent pending).

Table 1
Formulae for four-quadrant damper in round structure with round support and multiple rebars (Fig. 5)
  
DS DST 1N
r1 = tS tv r2 = + tv 0 =
2 2 2 N
4tv 1
= = Ar = N dr2
2 r1 + r2 N 4

2 1
Ac = (r r22 ) N dr2 Ic,0 = Ic, yc,r
2 A
c Ir,0 = Ir, yc,r
2 A
r
2 1 4
N 1  
 dr2
Ir, = dr2 + Rr2 cos2 (0 + nn )
4 16
n=0

N 1
(2/3)Ec (r13 r23 )sin(/2) + (/4)dr2 Rr (Er Ec ) n=0 cos(0 + nn )
yc,r = 
( /2)Ec (r12 r22 ) + (/4)Nd2r (Er Ec )
N
 1  2 
1  dr
Ic, = ( + sin)(r14 r24 ) dr2 + Rr2 cos2 (0 + nn )
8 4 16
n=0
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 433

Table 2
Formulae for four-quadrant damper in rectangular structure with rectangular support and multiple rebars (Fig. 6)
hS hST 1 + sin
h1 = tS tv h2 = + tv w1 = wS 2tS 2tv
2 2 cos
 
wS 2tS wST 1
w2 = wST 2tv cot = arctan Ar = N dr2
2 hS 2tS hST 4
 2 
1 1 1 dr
Ac = (h1 h2 )(w1 + w2 ) N dr2 Ir, = N dr2 + yr2 Ir,0 = Ir, yc,r
2 A
r
2 4 4 16
Ic,0 = Ic, yc,r
2 A
c

(2/3)Ec [h21 (2w1 + w2 ) h22 (w1 + 2w2 ) h1 h2 (w1 w2 )] + N yr dr2 (Er Ec )

yc,r =
2Ec (h1 h2 )(w1 + w2 ) + N dr2 (Er Ec )
  2 
1 dr
Ic, = h31 (3w1 + w2 ) h32 (w1 + 3w2 ) (h21 h2 + h1 h22 )(w1 w2 ) 3N dr2 + yr2
12 16

Table 3
Formulae for four-quadrant damper in rectangular structure with round support and multiple rebars (Fig. 7)
   
hS tv 1 + sin/2
h1 = tS tv h2 = r2 cos arcsin w1 = wS 2tS 2tv
2 2 r2 cos/2
 
tv wS 2tS DST
w2 = 2r2 sin arcsin = 2arctan r2 = + tv
2 r2 hS 2tS 2
 2 
1 1 1 dr
Ac = (h1 h2 )(w1 + w2 ) N dr2 Ir, = N dr2 + yr2 Ir,0 = Ir, yc,r
2 A
r
2 4 4 16
1
Ic,0 = Ic, yc,r
2 A
c Ar = N dr2
4
 
(2/3)Ec h21 (2w1 + w2 ) (h22 + h1 h2 )(w1 w2 ) + (w2 /4)(w22 12r22 ) + N yr dr2 (Er Ec )
yc,r =    
2Ec w1 (h1 h2 ) + w2 h1 + h2 r22 w22 /4 2r22 arcsinw2 /2r2 + N dr2 (Er Ec )
 3/2 
 
1 3 w22 3 2 w22 w2 2 dr2 2
Ic, = h1 (3w1 + w2 ) (h1 h2 + h1 h2 + h2 )(w1 w2 ) w2 r2
2 2 3 2
r2 w2 r2
2 + 2r2 arcsin
2
Ndr + yr
12 4 2 4 2r2 4 16

Fig. 6. Rectangular CastDamper with rectangular support and multiple

Fig. 5. Round CastDamper with round support and multiple rebars. rebars.
434 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441
Fig. 7. Rectangular CastDamper with round support and multiple rebars.
where bi and ti represent the characteristic width and
thickness of an individual damping layer and Gv its shear
modulus. A table of computed effective lengths Leff , which
essentially is dependent on the support conditions of the
structure, can be found in Hales thesis work [8]. The last
important equation in determining damping performance is
Fig. 8. Stiffness ratio and modal loss factor in terms of constrained layer thickness.
the calculation of the optimum damping layer thickness:

Gv L2eff 1 + v2 
tv,opt = bi (yi y1 )2 (4)
EI EI0
i
The strong correlation between ratio r and loss factor
is shown in Fig. 8, which plots the two characteristic values
against the constraining layer thickness of a round, internal
four-quadrant system. As can be seen, the steel-based de-
sign reaches higher values of r, resulting in better damping
compared to the concrete design. The reason for this dif-
ference has its roots in the modulus of elasticity, which for
steel is several times higher compared to concrete.
However, the primary shortcoming of a steel-based design
also becomes apparent: the need to find an inner tube with
the largest possible outer diameter to fit inside the structure
and the right wall thickness in order to maximize the stiff-
ness ratio r. The concrete-cast design, on the other hand,
removes two of these constraints by using the inner tube as a
simple support structure rather than as a constraining layer.
The only remaining parameter of importance is the outer
dimension of the inner tube because it determines the thick-
ness and with it the stiffness of the concrete constraining
layers; the wall thickness and material of the inner tube are
no longer of importance, making this design simpler and less
expensive.
It should be pointed out that damping performance is
also dependent on the thickness of the viscoelastic damping
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 435

layer, which can only be purchased in certain increments.
Steel-based designs generally require very thin damping
layers, often much thinner than what is actually avail-
able. Concrete-based layers, on the hand, generally require
thicker viscoelastic layers and are often close to an actually
available thickness.
The effect of the lower Youngs modulus of concrete
can be partially offset by adding inexpensive rebars to the
constraining layers (Fig. 9). The rebars increase the stiff-
ness of the constraining layers, thereby improving damping
performance considerably. This improvement is illustrated
in Fig. 10.
3.2. Damper fabrication
The fabrication of the dampers is remarkably simple.
First, the damping inserts are made from rectangles cut out
of viscoelastic material (Fig. 11a). Next, a lap joint with
Loctite 416 Superbonder (Loctite Corp., Rocky Hill, CT)
to bond the surfaces is used to form sausages (Fig. 11b).
Great care needs to be taken in order to properly size the
perimeter of these inserts. For a round structure with a round
support tube as shown in Fig. 5, it can be calculated as:
   
P = (DS 2tS ) + 1 + DST 1 (5)
4 4

Fig. 9. Reinforced concrete-cast constraining layer design (patent pending).

436 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441

Fig. 10. Loss factor and optimum damping layer thickness of CLD systems.

The correct perimeters for a rectangular structure with a In the case of a rectangular structure with a round support
rectangular support as shown in Fig. 6 would be: (Fig. 7), the correct perimeters are:

Ptop,bottom = wS 2tS + wST + (hS 2tS hST )2 + (wS 2tS wST )2 (6)

Pside = hS 2tS + hST + (hS 2tS hST )2 + (wS 2tS wST )2 (7)
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 437

Fig. 11. Cutting rectangles out of the damping sheet (a); tubular, viscoelastic damping insert made with a glued lap joint (b).

Ptop,bottom structure, the cable ties are removed and a fixture (Fig. 12a)
 is used to center the support tube with respect to the struc-
= wS 2tS + 2 (wS 2tS )2 + (hS 2tS )2
   ture as well as properly locate the damping inserts. While
wS 2tS
dST 1 arctan (8) the damping assembly may easily be inserted directly into
hS 2tS short structures, longer structures may require the damp-
 ing assembly to be loaded onto a sled, which is removed
Pside = hS 2tS + 2 (wS 2tS )2 + (hS 2tS )2 afterwards, to help with the insertion. Once the damping
  
hS 2tS inserts are properly placed, a cable tie can be used to tie off
dST 1 arctan (9) the ends, providing a leak proof seal at the bottom of the
wS 2tS
damping inserts (Fig. 12b).
As a next step, four damping inserts are equally spaced The final step of the fabrication process is the filling of
around the support structure and fixed at both ends using the inserts with expanding concrete. For reasonably short
a cable tie or clamp. This assembly is inserted into the structures, this is best done by having the structure upright
438 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441

Fig. 12. Cast fixture (a); using a fixture to center the support tube and locate the damping inserts (b).

and filling the inserts simultaneously or at least as evenly
as possible. This will ensure that the hydrostatic pressure
within the damping inserts is always balanced by the adja-
cent inserts, minimizing the risk of having an insert burst.
Larger structures, on the other hand, might be too long to
be filled upright. In such a case, it is better to have the
structure at a 3045 incline. In order to properly support
the top layer, thereby preventing it from sagging during the
cast process, the bottom insert should be filled first and its
end be closed off upon completion. Next, the inserts on
the side are filled and closed off as well. The top insert is
filled at last and the structure left to cure, which normally
takes between 1 and 2 days (Fig. 13). Further improve-
ments in the casting process may be achieved by filling the
inserts from the bottom up using a concrete pump as well
as additional agitation through forced vibration.
4. Experimental results
4.1. Setup
The damping ratios were obtained by analyzing the trans-
fer functions of a three-dimensional modal analysis using
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 439

Fig. 13. Filling the inserts with expanding concrete.

the Star SystemTM modal software (Spectral Dynamics, San
Jose, CA). A three-axis accelerometer was attached at 21
locations evenly spaced along the length and perimeter of
the 1,220 mm long (48 in.) prototype and the built-in Fast
Fourier transformations (FFT) of a Hewlett-Packard 35670A
frequency analyzer (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA)
were used to transfer the transducer signals from the time
into the frequency domain. In order to simulate a freefree
boundary condition, the test tube was suspended at the first
bending modes nodal points at roughly 20% and 80% of
the overall length using elastic cord (Fig. 14). Fixed spatial
excitation of the structure was accomplished by an impact
hammer equipped with a Delrin tip.
4.2. Damping results
The predicted and measured damping ratios for a 89 mm
(3.5 in.) diameter and 1220 mm (48 in.) long structural tube

Fig. 14. Experimental setup: freefree boundary condition.

440 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441
 E. Bamberg, A. Slocum / Precision Engineering 26 (2002) 430441 441

Table 4 the shape of the support tube from the shape of the structure,
Loss factors for 1220 mm89 mm (48 in.3.5 in) prototype with concrete making the CastDamper better suited for a wider range of
CastDamper structures.
1st mode 2nd mode 3rd mode In a ShearDamperTM design, the bottom needs to be
(283 Hz) (740 Hz) (1360 Hz) sealed in order to prevent epoxy from leaking out. This
Theoretical 0.0260 0.0263 0.0265 can be rather challenging in cases where the bottom is
Measured 0.0180 0.0430 0.0640 not easily accessible. Such problems are non-existent with
CastDampers because the damping inserts are closed at the
bottom by default.
Table 5 Damping performance of CastDampers is somewhat
Loss factors for 610 mm 140 mm (24 in. 5.5 in.) prototypes (1st mode)
frequency dependent, due to the internal damping of the
ShearDamperTM CastDamper CastDamper with concrete, and can be improved even further by adding
0.5 in. rebars inexpensive rebars to the constraining layers.
Theoretical 0.037 0.035 0.044
Measured 0.0592 0.1432 0.3308
(1530 Hz) (1260 Hz) (1640 Hz) References

equipped with a four-quadrant concrete-cast damping sys-
tem and a 48.3 mm (1.9 in.) diameter support tube are given
in Table 4. It is interesting to note how well theory and
experiment agree on the first mode at 280 Hz, while higher
modes offer more damping than predicted. This unexpected
performance plus might be attributed to the fact that con-
crete itself has internal damping that is highly frequency
dependent [9,10]. Its influence, however, is not included in
the predictions.
The frequency dependency in damping performance is
consistent with experimental data from an earlier proto-
type that was shorter (610 mm long = 24 in.) and larger in
diameter (140 mm = 5.5 in.). As shown in Table 5, loss fac-
tors measured at the first bending mode were considerably
higher than calculated. A performance comparison between
various designs is shown in Fig. 15.
5. Conclusions
The CastDamper design offers an excellent alternative
to existing internal CLD designs. By eliminating the need
[10] Kohoutek R. Elastic modulus and damping of concrete elements.
for expensive epoxy, material cost for the prototypes were
7075% lower compared to a conventional ShearDamperTM
design. Casting the constraining layers effectively decouples
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