Material damping affects the dynamic behaviors of engineering structures considerably, but up to till now little research is maintained on influence factors of material damping. Based on the damping-stress function of steel, the material damping of steel beams is obtained by calculating the stress distribution of the beams with an analytical method. Some key influence factors of the material damping, such as boundary condition, amplitude and frequency of excitation, load position as well as the cross-sectional dimension of a steel beam are analyzed respectively. The calculated results show that even in elastic scope, material damping does not remain constant but varies with these influence factors. Although boundary condition affects material damping to some extent, such influence can be neglected when the maximum stress amplitude of the beam is less than the fatigue limit of steel. Exciting frequency, load position and cross-section dimension have great effects on the material damping of the beam which maintain the similar changing trend under different boundary conditions respectively.