Relating Vibration and Thermal Losses Using the Damping Heat Coefficient

Damping of vibrating systems converts the vibrational energy into other forms, such as heat and sound radiation. Heating of the material is often assumed to be one of the biggest drains of energy; however, it is very hard to experimentally identify how much of the damped energy is converted to heat. This manuscript introduces the damping heat coefficient and via high-speed cameras (optical and thermal) identifies that, for the selected material, approximatelly 30% of the damped energy is converted to heat.