COMPARISON OF HARMONIC BALANCE VS. TIME INTEGRATION FOR TIME-PERIODIC NONLINEAR SQUEEZE FILM DAMPING PROBLEMS

Squeeze film damping is a critical phenomenon in various engineering applications, such as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and rotating machinery. Particularly for audio MEMS transducers, squeeze film damping plays a crucial role in ensuring high-quality audio playback. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance and accuracy of a certain numerical harmonic balance method compared to the commonly used time integration in capturing the complex dynamics and accurately predicting the resulting total harmonic distortion. A comprehensive set of numerical experiments is conducted to compare the results obtained from both methods, considering various damping coefficients and different excitation amplitudes.The results of this study aim to better understand the strengths and limitations of both numerical concepts, thereby helping researchers and engineers select the most appropriate numerical approach for the analysis of time-periodic nonlinear problems such as harmonic distortion generation by squeeze film damping.