Thermoelastic damping in rectangular and circular microplate resonators

Predicting thermoelastic damping (TED) is crucial in the design of high Q micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) resonators. In the past, some analytical models have been developed for TED in microbeam resonators. Rectangular and circular microplates are also common elements in many micro-resonators. Two analytical models have been developed for TED in the contour-mode vibration and the out-of-plane vibration of circular microplates, respectively. However, there is lack of works that model the TED in the out-of-plane vibration of rectangular microplates. This paper presents an analytical model for the TED in the fully clamped and simply supported rectangular microplates. The quality factor is found by calculating the energy dissipated per cycle of vibration over the volume of the microplate. The derivation in this paper shows that the model for the TED in the fully clamped and simply supported rectangular plates is the same as the model for the TED in the fully clamped and simply supported circular plates. For the rectangular microplates with other boundary conditions, based on Rayleigh's method, this paper presents a set of analytical approximate models to estimate the TED in the rectangular microplates vibrating in the fundamental mode. The present model is validated by comparison with previously reported model and the FEM model. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.