Viscoelasticity: an electrical point of view

Abstract

Time dependent hereditary properties of complex materials are well described by power-laws with real order exponent. This experimental observation and analogous electrical experiments, yield a description of these properties by using fractional-order operators. In this paper, elasto-viscous and viscoelastic behaviors of fractional order hereditary materials are firstly described by using fractional mathematical operators, based on recent work of some of the authors. Then, electrical analogous models are introduced. Viscoelastic models have elastic and viscous components which can be obtained by combining springs and dashpots: these models can be equivalently viewed as electrical circuits, where the spring and dashpot are analogous to the capacitance and resistance, respectively. The proposed models are validated by using modal analysis. The use of electrical analogous in viscoelasticity can better reveal the real behavior of fractional hereditary materials.