Constitutive parameter estimation of a viscoelastic model with internal variables

The present work is aimed at estimating the constitutive parameters of viscoelastic materials. The constitutive equation addressed takes internal dissipation into account by means of internal variables. The identification method is built on an optimization problem where the minimum of an error function is sought. The error function is based on the difference between the experimental response and the model one and on the parameter constraints as well. The constitutive parameters are estimated by means of a modified Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The viscoelastic material characterization was assessed through an experimental set-up consisted of a sandwich beam with a viscoelastic core.