Damping properties of nickel-added modified zinc alloys

Abstract

The objective of the present work is to investigate the effect of Ni content on the damping behaviour of zinc modified alloy using a dynamic mechanical analyser. The modified zinc alloys were prepared for different additions of Ni content using the liquid metallurgical technique. Damping properties such as storage modulus, loss modulus and specific damping capacity were studied for both zinc alloy and modified zinc alloy over a temperature range of 30 C to 300 C. The results showed that the specific damping capacity and loss modulus of both zinc and modified zinc alloys increased with increases in temperature, but storage modulus decreased with temperature. The addition of Ni into zinc alloys improves its specific damping capacity due to the thermal expansion mismatch which induced a dislocation density between the matrix and alloy. The specific damping capacity was found to be high at higher temperature (300 o C) due to the intrinsic damping of zinc alloy and thermo-elastic damping between the zinc alloy and Ni particulate. In the present work, it was also found that the contribution of thermoelastic damping is significant throughout the temperature range considered.