Experiments and a new model on damping in rare air

Presented in this paper is an experimental study of squeeze- film air damping in rare air. Experimental beam-mass devices with different gap distances have been designed and fabricated for the experiments and a glass apparatus has been design and set up for measurement in quality factor in low pressure range. The piezoresistive bridge on the beam facilities the measurements of quality factor in vacuum. The pressure coverage in the study is in the range of 105 Pa to below 0.1Pa. The experimental results of quality factor do not agree well with the existing model proposed by Christian, but agree much better with a new model using energy transfer scheme instead of the momentum exchange scheme used by Christian.