Recent developments and selected patents on vibration based methods for the elastic characterization of isotropic materials

A detailed knowledge of the basic engineering material properties is of fundamental importance for fabrication purpose as well as for proper design and reliability estimation of any kind of engineering structure. In particular, knowledge of elastic properties, such as Young's Modulus and Poisson's Ratio allows to assess the static and/or dynamic performances of a structure and provides information on the quality achieved during the fabrication process. Various methodologies have been proposed through the years for the elastic characterization of engineering materials. Vibrationbased methods allow to determine the material properties combining experimentally measured natural frequencies of suitable samples to analytical or numerical models relating the natural frequencies to the geometrical dimensions, mass density and the unknown elastic properties. Vibration-based methods are today commonly employed because of the nondestructive nature of frequency measurements and the simple operating procedures involved. The efforts provided by research scientists and engineers in this field are currently enclosed in a huge number of meaningful journal papers and patents devoted to the subject. The aim of the present work is to review recent progresses and selected patents in the field of vibration based methods for the elastic characterization of isotropic materials. © 2009 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.