© 2016 Acoustical Society of America. Damping in vibration models is often treated on an empirical basis based upon experimental measurement of damping in the eigenmodes of the model. Thus if one starts with a finite element model, for example, the undamped eigenmodes are found and then the damping is inserted into the eigenmode model of the structure. However sometimes one wishes to return to the finite element model representation and then the question arises as to how to represent the damping consistent with the eigenmode representation. This note provides an answer to that question.