Characterization of damping in vibrating microplates through measurements in the time domain

This paper reports a study about the measurement of damping in microplates for MEMS applications as switches, varactors, transceivers, radio frequency devices and energy harvesters. Through the measurement of applied force and displacement in the time domain, the hysteresis curve is obtained; by using an energetic approach, the dissipative effects acting on the structure are derived and the damping coefficient is estimated. The results are compared with damping values obtained with two alternative experimental strategies: the response decay to a step force and the half power method applied to the frequency response function.