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Damping Studies on Polyester Polymer Concrete

Article  in  Advances in Vibration Engineering · February 2014

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 Damping Studies on Polyester Polymer Concrete

Raman Bedi and Simrandeep Kaur Brar

Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Jalandhar,
Jalandhar 144 011, India
bediraman74@gmail.com; deepsmrn@yahoo.co.in

Abstract

This paper deals with the evaluation of damping of Polyester Polymer Concrete using Taguchi method
of Design of Experiments. As Polymer Concrete is finding new applications in addition to their basic use
in civil application i.e. structures, machine tool beds etc. due to their better properties, it is necessary to
characterize damping of the material. Polyester Polymer Concrete mainly consist of three components
i.e., resin, filler and aggregate. Different mixes of polymer concrete containing resin, filler and aggregate
in varying percentages arrived at using Taguchi design of experiments were prepared in this study. Resin
%age was varied from 16–24% where as filler is varied from 12–20%. Foundry sand of various grain sizes
has been used as the aggregate material. It is known that aggregate and filler form the major component
of the polymer concrete and the distribution of their particle size influences the properties of polymer
concrete. Damping of the nine mix types of polymer concrete has been evaluated in the form of tan δ using
the Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer and interaction between these three parameters i.e. resin, filler and
aggregate is analyzed by Taguchi Technique to find the most significant Parameter affecting damping.

Keywords: Polymer concrete, Damping, Dynamic mechanical analyzer

1 Introduction
Polymer Concrete (PC) is a kind of composite material made up of solid aggregates and organic resins
as binder. The invention of PC comes up from the field of civil engineering; the early applications are
mainly to repair damaged constructions[1, 2] . Applications of PC in mechanical engineering began in
the 1970s first in Switzerland and Germany, later this application spreads throughout Europe to the
whole world[3, 4] .
The structural damping is one of the most important factors that determine the dynamical behavior of
machine tools and, consequently, it has influence on the machining capability. Commonly, the structural
components are made from cast iron due to their higher damping capacity with respect to other metals.
However, casting process requires open box structures and small thickness walls, which implies low
natural frequencies that limit the machining conditions. But polymer concrete allows producing closed
structures with higher thickness walls involving higher natural frequencies and also, the use of visco-
elastic matrix mixed with mineral aggregates to manufacture provides higher damping to the final
structure[5] .
It has been concluded that these construction materials have better properties such as chemical
resistance, ease of production, workability, and damping as compared to metals. For this reason com-
posite materials are increasingly used in the manufacture of machine tools[6, 7] .

JOURNAL OF VIBRATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGIES, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2014 © KRISHTEL eMAGING SOLUTIONS PVT. LTD.,
48 RAMAN BEDI, et al. / JOURNAL OF VIBRATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGIES, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2014

The present research is planned to investigate the damping of polymer concrete using Dynamic
Mechanical Analyzer (DMA) at different frequencies i.e., 20 Hz and 40 Hz. Different polymer concrete
mixes were made with varied weight fraction of polyester resin, calcium carbonate and different com-
positions of fine aggregate using design of experiment approach[8, 9] . The aim of the present study is to
investigate the damping behavior of polyester polymer concrete for various mix proportions and find the
optimum mix proportion so that the vibration in structural components or machine beds can be reduced.

2 Material and Experimental Program

General Purpose polyester resin has been used as a binder in this study because it has excellent mechanical
and chemical properties, costs less than epoxy resins and is readily available[10, 11] . Polyester has been
cured at room temperature using 4% Metyl-Ethyl-Keton-Peroxide (MEKP) as hardener and 1.25% cobalt
oxalate as accelerator.
As the main aim of the present research was to study the effect of polymer concrete composition on
damping, 9 different combinations were designed using Taguchi method of design of experiments[12] .
Percentage of polyester resin, aggregate mix types consisting of different sand grain sizes designated as
CFA (Table 1) and percentage of calcium carbonate (filler) were used as variables. The compositions
of Polyester concrete thus obtained are shown in Table 2. Based on it, polyester concretes of different
composition were prepared in the laboratory. The samples were cured at room temperature for 7 days.
Afterwards, post curing was done in oven at the temperature of 80◦ C for 8 hours. Samples were cut to
a size of 50 × 6 × 3 mm approximately for testing on DMA.

Table 1 Composition of Fine Aggregate (CFA)

Composition of Aggregate
CFA Type 225 − 300 μ 300 − 425 μ 425 − 600 μ
Type 1 25% 50% 25%
Type 2 50% 25% 25%
Type 3 25% 25% 50%

Table 2 Taguchi combinations for polyester polymer concrete using L-9

array

Composition % Polyester % Calcium CFA

Run. No. Resin Carbonate Type
1. 16 12 Type 1
2. 16 16 Type 2
3. 16 20 Type 3
4. 20 12 Type 2
5. 20 16 Type 3
6. 20 20 Type 1
7. 24 12 Type 3
8. 24 16 Type 1
9. 24 20 Type 2
 DAMPING STUDIES ON POLYESTER POLYMER CONCRETE 49

3 Results and Discussion

The specimens prepared in the laboratory were tested
using TRITON DMA in three point bending mode.
The tan δ, Storage Modulus vs. temperature plot for
polyester polymer concrete for run no. 6 is given in
the Fig. 1.
Further time scan tests were conducted at different
frequencies such as 20 Hz and 40 Hz. Tables 3 and 4
present the result of time scan test i.e., tan δ values at
20 Hz and 40 Hz respectively. Fig. 1 Plot of tan δ vs. temperature for run no. 6

3.1 Statistical analysis of results

The performance statistics for “the lager the better” situations are evaluated for maximization of damping
properties of polyester polymer concrete[13] . The signal to noise ratio (S/N ratio) is calculated as given
in (1) for larger the better
 
S 1 n
1
= −10 log10 (1)
N n i=1 Yi2

3.1.1 S/N analysis for 20 Hz test frequency

Table 5 presents the S/N values for the tan δ results obtained at 20 Hz frequency. The results are
further plotted in Figs. 2, 3 and 4. It is observed that highest damping as well as highest S/N Ratio is
observed at level L2 of resin as shown in Fig. 2. Similar is the case for filler wherein highest values
of damping and S/N Ratio is obtained at level L2 as shown in Fig. 4. In the case of CFA (Compo-
sition of Fine Aggregate) type, it is observed that highest damping is observed at level L3 i.e Type 3
CFA. This shows that using coarse grain size sand may increase the damping further, which needs to be
investigated.

Table 3 tan δ at frequency 20 Hz Table 4 tan δ at frequency 40 Hz

Run. Run.
No. Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 No. Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3
1. 0.0594 0.0552 0.0533 1. 0.0542 0.0532 0.0568
2. 0.0626 0.0938 0.0779 2. 0.059 0.0985 0.0784
3. 0.0922 0.0752 0.1046 3. 0.1062 0.072 0.095
4. 0.1335 0.1571 0.1645 4. 0.1424 0.1449 0.1468
5. 0.1372 0.154 0.1406 5. 0.1412 0.1562 0.1393
6. 0.1252 0.126 0.1163 6. 0.1206 0.1176 0.1209
7. 0.0859 0.1046 0.0932 7. 0.0882 0.1156 0.0899
8. 0.1007 0.1187 0.0942 8. 0.1079 0.1035 0.0963
9. 0.0649 0.0687 0.0667 9. 0.0614 0.0657 0.0638
50 RAMAN BEDI, et al. / JOURNAL OF VIBRATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGIES, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2014

Table 5 Damping and S/N ratio of polyester Table 6 Damping and S/N ratio of polyester
polymer concrete at 20 Hz polymer concrete at 40 Hz

Run. Average Sum of S/N Run. Average Sum of S/N

No. (tan δ) Squares Ratio No. (tan δ) Squares Ratio
1. 0.0560 321.20 −25.07 1. 0.0547 334.56 −25.24
2. 0.0781 177.88 −22.50 2. 0.0786 184.35 −22.66
3. 0.0907 128.62 −21.09 3. 0.0911 130.79 −21.17
4. 0.1517 44.53 −16.49 4. 0.1447 47.78 −16.79
5. 0.1439 48.63 −16.87 5. 0.1456 47.56 −16.77
6. 0.1225 66.91 −18.25 6. 0.1197 69.83 −18.44
7. 0.0946 114.02 −20.57 7. 0.0979 109.04 −20.38
8. 0.1045 94.09 −19.74 8. 0.1026 95.69 −19.81
9. 0.0668 224.69 −23.52 9. 0.0636 247.53 −23.94

Fig. 2 Resin vs. average values of damping and Fig. 3 Filler vs. average values of damping and
S/N ratio at 20 Hz S/N ratio at 20 Hz

Fig. 4 CFA type vs. average values of damping Fig. 5 Resin vs. average values of damping and
and S/N ratio at 20 Hz S/N ratio at 40 Hz
 DAMPING STUDIES ON POLYESTER POLYMER CONCRETE 51

Fig. 6 Filler vs. average values of damping and Fig. 7 CFA type vs. average values of damping
S/N ratio at 40 Hz and S/N ratio at 40 Hz

Table 7 Interaction between the factors for fre- Table 8 Interaction between the factors for fre-
quency 20 Hz quency 40 Hz

A B C A B C
(% of (% of (Type of (% of (% of (Type of
Level Resin) Filler) CFA) Level Resin) Filler) CFA)
1. −22.89 −20.71 −21.02 1. −23.02 −20.80 −21.16
2. −17.20 −19.70 −20.83 2. −17.33 −19.75 −21.13
3. −21.27 −20.95 −19.51 3. −21.34 −21.18 −19.44
 5.69 1.25 1.51  5.69 1.43 1.72
Rank 1 3 2 Rank 1 3 2

3.1.2 S/N analysis for 40 Hz test frequency

Table 6 presents the S/N values for the tan δ results obtained at 40Hz frequency. The results are further
plotted in Figs. 5, 6 and 7. It is observed that highest damping as well as highest S/N Ratio is observed
at level L2 of resin as shown in Fig. 5. Similar is the case for filler wherein highest values of damping
and S/N Ratio is obtained at level L2 as shown in Fig. 6. In the case of CFA type, it is observed that
highest damping is observed at level L3 i.e Type 3 CFA.
Tables 7 and 8 describe the major parameters which influences the damping of polymer concrete.
Parameter A i.e. Percentage of resin is ranked 1 i.e., it has the major influence on the damping. Type of
CFA is ranked 2 and Percentage of filler is ranked 3. Parameters B and C have very little influence in
the damping of polymer concrete.

4 Conclusions
Within the limited scope of the present investigation, the following broad conclusions may be drawn:

• Damping property of the polyester polymer concrete can be successfully analyzed using Taguchi
experimental design scheme.
 52 RAMAN BEDI, et al. / JOURNAL OF VIBRATION ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGIES, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 2014

• The results indicate that resin percentage in polyester polymer concrete will be the most significant
factor to control damping.
• Damping of polymer concrete increases as the amount of resin increases in the polyester polymer
concrete, but if the amount of resin is further increased than 20% then the damping shows a declining
trend, which can be due to improper mixing and segregation of sand particles due to excess resin.
• Amount of filler influences the damping properties of polyester polymer concrete up to a small extent.
This study indicates that when filler is used as 16% by weight of polyester polymer concrete, damping
will be maximized.
• Type 3 aggregate composition is seen to give the best damping performance which has largest
percentage of coarse sand i.e., 50% (425 − 600 μ). It can therefore be concluded that coarse grain
sand will give better damping performance of polymer concrete.

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