Dynamic mechanical and acoustic characterization of a PVC‐based commercial damping elastomer.

Experiments carried out on a PVC‐based commercial damping elastomer, Isodamp C‐1002, are used to illustrate a forced vibration, nonresonant method for the determination of complex modulus in the frequency range 10 Hz–10 kHz, using tensile and compressive excitation. For tensile excitation, a simple model was successful in interpreting the data up to the resonance frequency of the sample. Compressive excitation, on the other hand, required a model that incorporated the inertial mass acting on the force transducer; however, interference from sample resonance was excluded. Sources of error in both cases could be traced to the phase angle, which is sensitive to resonance phenomena, and low signal to noise ratio. Transmission loss and echo reduction measurements were carried out on immersed 1‐×1‐ft samples in the frequency range 4–100 kHz using a narrow beam parametric array source to minimize edge diffraction and tank reverberation effects.