A method is proposed to identity the mechanical properties of the skin and core materials of sandwich structures having heterogeneous cores. All the elastic coefficients and loss-factors that matter in the dynamics of such a panel in the thick-plate approximation are identified. To this end, experimental natural modes (i.e. eigenmodes of the damped system) are compared to the numerical modes of large sandwich panels (l_(x.y)/h ≈ 80). The chosen generic model for the visco-elastic behaviour of the materials is E(1+ jη). The numerical modes are computed by means of a Rayleigh-Ritz procedure and their dampings are predicted according to the visco-elastic model. The frequencies and dampings of the natural modes of the panel are estimated experimentally by means of a high-resolution modal analysis technique. An optimisation procedure yields the desired coefficients. A sensitivity analysis assess the reliability of the method. Identification is conducted on two very different kind of sandwich panels to illustrate the method.
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