The material removal rate and required workpiece surface quality of thin-walled structure milling are greatly limited due to its severe vibration, which is directly associated with the dynamic characteristics of the system.Therefore, the suppression of vibration is an unavoidable problem during milling. A novel partial surface damping method is proposed to modify the mode of the thin walled cantilever plate and to suppress vibration during milling.Based on classical plate theory, the design criterion is analyzed and configuration of the partial surface damper is introduced, in which viscoelastic plate and constraining plate are attached to the surface of the plate to increase the system’s natural frequency and loss factor. In order to obtain the energy expression of the cutting system, the Ritz method is used to describe the unknown displacements.Then, with Lagrange’s equation, the natural frequency and loss factor are calculated. In addition, the plate is divided into a finite number of square elements, and the regulation of treated position is studied based on theoretic and experimental analysis. The milling tests are conducted to verify its damping performance and the experimental results show that with treatment of partial surface damper,the deformation of the bare plate is reduced from 0.27 mm to 0.1 mm, while the vibration amplitude of the bare plate is reduced from 0.08 mm to 0.01 mm. The proposed research provides the instruction to design partial surface damper. The material removal rate and required workpiece surface quality of thin-walled structure milling are greatly limited due to its severe vibration, which is directly associated with the dynamic characteristics of the system. Before, the suppression of vibration is an unavoidable problem during milling. A novel partial surface damping method is proposed to modify the mode of the thin walled cantilever plate and to suppress vibration during milling.Based on classical plate theory, the design criterion is described and configuration of the partial surface damper is introduced, in which viscoelastic plate and constraining plate are attached to the surface of the plate to increase the system’s natural frequency and loss factor. In order to obtain the energy expression of the cutting system, the Ritz method is used to describe the unknown displacements.Then, with Lagrange’s equation, the natural frequency and loss factor are calculated. In addition, the plate is divided into a finite number of square elements, and the regulation of treated position is studied based on theoretic and experimental analysis. The milling tests are conducted to verify its damping performance and the experimental results show that with treatment of partial surface damper, the deformation of the bare plate is reduced from 0.27 mm to 0.1 mm, while the vibration amplitude of the bare plate is reduced from 0.08 mm to 0.01 mm. The proposed research provides the instruction to design partial surface damper.