Reduction of thermo-elastic damping with a secondary elastic field

Thermo-elastic damping is the dominant mode of energy loss due to the coupling of thermal and elastic fields in a body vibrating at or near resonant frequency. While the literature contains both exact and numerical schemes to quantify it, no technique is available yet to reduce thermo-elastic damping. We address this issue by introducing a secondary elastic field to derive an exact expression that predicts linear reduction in thermo-elastic damping with respect to frequency. Contrary to the current understanding, introduction of a static axial stress in addition to the flexural stresses is shown to increase quality factor and resonant frequency simultaneously.