Viscoelastically damped reinforced skin structures

Claim 1

In a reinforced skin structure including a plurality of frames, a plurality of spaced-apart stringers and a skin, said plurality of stringers being affixed to and supported by said plurality of frames, said skin being affixed to and supported by said plurality of stringers, said plurality of stringers having a U-shape with outwardly projecting flanges oriented such that said skin is affixed to the crossmembers of said U-shaped stringers and the flanges of said U-shaped stringers are affixed to said plurality of frames, the improvement comprising an integral damping mechanism, said integral damping mechanism comprising: (A) core layers attached to said skin and located between adjacent pairs of spaced-apart stingers; and, (B) viscoelastic coupling means for selectively attaching said core layers to said stringers, said viscoelastic coupling means comprising: (1) a relatively stiff coupling comprising: (a) a first panel comprising a plurality of sections, each of said first panel sections extending from the flange of one of said stringers to the flange of the next adjacent stringer so as to overlie the core layer lying between said adjacent stringers; and, (b) a second panel comprising a plurality of sections, each of said second panel sections overlying an adjacent pair of first panel sections so as to span the area between the flanges of a U-shaped stringer; (2) stringer/coupling viscoelastic layers for attaching said first panel sections to said stringers; (3) core/coupling viscoelastic layers for attaching said first panel sections to said core layers; and (4) panel/panel viscoelastic layers for attaching said second panel sections to said first panel sections.