Passive damping of thin film Nitinol

Thin film Nitinol is evaluated for a new damping solution to microscale damping. In this study, thin fihn Nitinol was mechanically tested under steady and cyclic tensile loads in a DMA Q800 load frame to determine stifffiess and hysteric losses (tan delta = 0.17). A method of determining the damping properties of a multilayered laminate was derived and evaluated using measured and predicted values of Nitinol film damping. Hysteretic loss of tan delta 0.76 was predicted for a tensile/compressive loading of a film indicative of loading in a MEMS structure. Damping in a silicon/Nitinol laminate using the tensile/compressive loading film damping prediction was calculated to be tan delta = 0.127.