Approximate method for determination of dynamic characteristics of structures with viscoelastic dampers

An approximate method for determination of dynamic characteristics of structures with viscoelastic dampers is proposed in this paper. A fractional derivative is used to describe the dynamic behaviour of viscoelastic dampers. The method is based on a continuous dependency of the sensitivity of eigenvalue on a certain artificially introduced parameter which scaled up the influence of the damping term in the eigenvalue problem. Some results of a representative calculation are also presented and briefly discussed.