The importance of thermoelastic damping as a fundamental dissipation mechanism for small-scale mechanical resonators is evaluated in light of recent efforts to design high-Q micrometer- and nanometer-scale electro-mechanical systems (MEMS and NEMS). The equations of linear thermoelasticity are used to give a simple derivation for thermoelastic damping of small flexural vibrations in thin beams. It is shown that Zener's well-known approximation by a Lorentzian with a single thermal relaxation time slightly deviates from the exact expression.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9909271,
title = {Thermoelastic Damping in Micro- and Nano-Mechanical Systems},
author = {Ron Lifshitz and M. L. Roukes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9909271},
year = {2009}
}