Effects of the Length Scale Parameter on the Thermoelastic Damping of a Microbeam Considering the Couple Stress Theory

This paper studies the thermoelastic damping in microbeams considering the couple stress theory with microstructure. This theory includes the microinertia effects, coming from the kinetic energy due to the velocity gradient through the differential macroelements. A Galerkin-based reduced order model and complex frequency approach have been used to determine the quality factor. For a gold microbeam as a case study, the obtained results for different ambient temperatures, beam lengths and thicknesses are compared to those obtained using the classic theory of elasticity. The comparison has been made for different values of the length scale parameter. The effects of the microinertia term on the magnitude of the thermoelastic damping have also been investigated and shown that for which conditions these effects are significant.