Tittmann B., Lucas I., Ashok V.

Elastomeric materials are frequently used for the damping of vibrations in structures and components. Here we present absoption values for a suite of synthetic and natural rubber materials with various additives. We demonstrate the use of air-coupled ultrasound to measure relative attenuation in the 500 KHz regime. We show relative attenuation values in the MHz range to shed light on the non-linear amplitude dependence. We present absorption data versus temperature to document the damping peaks. Atomic Force Microscopy gives images for studying the distribution of, for example, carbon particles. The results shed light on the effectivess of additives to enhance the damping properties.