The increased adoption of composite laminates in modern engineering requires advancement in the prediction of their dynamic behavior. Damping in particular, is a major design constraint in aerospace structures subjected to cyclic loads. While the effects caused by damping are well known, the mechanisms that cause it at the microscopic level are still unclear on a quantitative basis. Testing of these phenomena requires some difficulties to be overcome, like the contribution of spurious sources.

Several models are available to account for damping in composites. A selection of these methods have been analyzed, implemented on a finite element framework and compared with each other highlighting advantages and disadvantages. A modification to an existing method has been proposed in order to improve the accuracy over computational load ratio. A testing campaign has been conducted on carbon fiber composites to evaluate the prediction efficacy of the analyzed models.

Finally, the study focus on the effects that the interphase has on damping of the structure. Three-phase models are employed for this purpose, and new insights emerged on the explicit dependence of damping from the interphase mechanical properties. Predictions does compare well with experimental results for the simpler stacking sequences, the accuracy does not seem to significantly increase when computationally heavier methods are employed. The experimental campaign conducted on interphase effects on damping confirms the attended results.