Thermoelastic damping in micro-beam resonators

Thermoelastic damping is recognized as a significant loss mechanism at room temperature in micro-scale beam resonators. In this paper, the governing equations of coupled thermoelastic problems are established based on the generalized thermoelastic theory with one relaxation time. The thermoelastic damping of micro-beam resonators is analyzed by using both the finite sine Fourier transformation method combined with Laplace transformation and the normal mode analysis. The vibration responses of deflection and thermal moment are obtained for the micro-beams with simply supported and isothermal boundary conditions. The vibration frequency is analyzed for three boundary condition cases, i.e., the clamped and isothermal, the simply supported and isothermal, and the simply supported and adiabatic. The analytic results show that the amplitude of deflection and thermal moment are attenuated and the vibration frequency is increased with thermoelastic coupling effect being considered. In addition, it can be found from both the analytic results and the numerical calculations that these properties are size-dependent. When the thickness of the micro-beam is larger than its characteristic size, the effect of thermoelastic damping weakens as the beam thickness increases. The size-effect induced by thermoelastic coupling would disappear when the thickness of the micro-beam is over a critical value that depends on the material properties and the boundary conditions. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.