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An Introduction to Mechanical Vibration

Single Degree of Freedom System


A single degree of freedom system consists of a mass, a spring, and a damper if the system is modeled as a damped system. The spring is modeled as a linear spring, which provides a restoring force. The damper is modeled as a viscous damper, which provides a damping force proportional to a relative displacement and acting in the direction against a velocity vector. If there is a driving force acting on the mass, the system vibrates under the driving force, which is called forced vibration. Otherwise, the system may vibrate under initial displacement and/or initial velocity, which is called free vibration.

Undamped Free Response Damped Free Response Forced Response

Undamped Free Response

Free vibration occurs because there is an initial disturbance to the system. The initial disturbance is referred to as an initial condition, which can be either a displacement of the mass, an initial velocity of the mass, or both. Frequency of the system is determined by the mass and spring constant of the system, initial conditions do not affect the vibration frequency of an undamped system, therefore it is called the natural frequency. Vibration amplitude and the phase angle are also determined by initial conditions. Theoretically, an undamped free vibration system will vibrate forever once it is started.

DANIEL J. INMAN, Engineering Vibration, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,1994

Damped Free Response


Physically, there is no vibrating system that vibrates forever, that means there is always some kind of damping in the system that dissipates energy. For mathematical simplicity, the damping is modeled as viscous damping. Depending on the magnitude of damping, a damped system can be underdamped, critically damped or overdamped. The critical damping coefficient is determined by the system's mass and spring constant. Under critical damping, the damping ratio is unity. Critical damping separates nonoscillatory motion from oscillatory motion. When the damping ratio is greater than

1, which is called overdamping, the system does not oscillate. For a damping ratio less than 1, which is called underdamping, the system oscillates with decaying magnitude, as shown in the figure below. For most physical system, damping ratios are less than 1. Actually, most physical systems have damping ratio less than 0.1. With damping in the free vibration system, the mass always restores its equilibrium position even it is disturbed. The greater the damping, the less time it takes to restore its equilibrium position. So in most cases, adequate damping is desireable.

DANIEL J. INMAN, Engineering Vibration, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,1994

Forced Response of SDOF

When there is a driving force acting on SDOF system, the system's vibrating frequency is determined by the driving force frequency and damping ratio. We are mostly interested in the magnitude and phase shift of the response. These characteristics are indicated in the system's Frequency Response Function. When driving frequency is close to the system's natural frequency, forced vibration magnitude is large. When driving frequency is equal to natural frequency, forced vibration reaches its maximum magnitude, this is called resonance. Under resonance, the response's phase shift is 90 degree. The damping ratio also has an effect on FRF. The greater the damping ratio, the less the forced vibration magnitude.

Isolating Dynamic Forces from Transmitting to Ground

Vibration Absorber
Vibration absorber is used to protect the primary system from steadystate harmonic disturbance. By attaching the absorber to the primary system which is modeled as a SDOF system, the new system becomes two DOF system as shown in the model below. Depending on the driving frequency on the original system, the absorber needs to be carefully tuned, that is, to cho0se adequate value of the absorber mass and stiffness, so that the motion of the original mass is a minimum.

Vibration Absorber Tuning Simulation Software Vibration absorber model:

Vibration Damping
What is damping? Damping is the energy dissipation properties of a material or system under cyclic stress. Active damping and passive damping: Active damping: Active damping refers to energy dissipation from the system by external means, such as controlled actuator, etc. Passive damping: Passive damping refers to energy dissipation within the structure by add-on damping devices such as isolator, by structural joints and supports, or by structural member's internal damping. Material damping and system damping: Material damping: Energy dissipation in a volume of macro-continuous media. System damping: Energy dissipation in the total structure. in addition to damping due to materials, it also includes energy dissipation effects of joints, fasteners, and interfaces.

Damping Measurement: There are many methods for measuring the damping of a vibtation system. Logarithmic decrement method and bandwidth meathod are introduced here. Logarithmic decrement method is used to measure damping in time domain. In this method, the free vibration displacement amplitude history of a system to an impulse is measured and recorded. A typical free decay curve is shown as below.Logarithmic decrement is the natural logarithmic value of the ratio of two adjacent peak values of displacement in free decay vibration.

To estimate damping ratio from frequency domain, we may use halfpower bandwidth method. In this method, FRF amplitude of the system is obtained first.Corresponding to each natural frequency, there is a peak in FRF amplitude. 3 dB down from the peak there are two point corresponding to half power point, as shown in the figure below. The more the damping, the more the frequency range between this two point. Half-power bandwidth BD is defined as the ratio of the frequency range between the two half power points to the natural frequency at this mode.

Damping in Machine Tools: Damping in machine tools basically is derived from two sources-material damping and interfacial slip damping. Material damping is the damping inherent in the materials of which the machine is constructed. The magnitude of material damping is small comparing to the total damping in machine tools. A typical damping ratio value for material damping in machine tools is 0.003. It accounts for approximately 10% of the total damping. The interfacial damping results from the contacting surfaces at bolted joints and sliding joints. This type of damping accounts for approximately 90% of the total damping. Among the two types of joints, sliding joints contribute most of the damping. Welded joints usually provide very small damping which may be negleted when considering damping in joints.

Vibration Isolation
A vibration isolation system is used to isolate the sources of vibration from the system of interest, as shown in the model below, where the base is moving for various reasons, such as a close machine tool is operating, or a heavy truck is passing by. We are interested in keeping the device M (which may be a machine tool) from vibration displacement transmitted from the base. To achieve this, an isolator is placed between the base and the device. Isolators are usually made of highly damped materials such as rubber, which, when placed between the base and the device,

changes the stiffness and damping between the source of vibration and the device that is to be protected from vibration.

Isolating Vibration Transmitted from Ground

Another way to isolate vibration is to keep the vibration source from transmitting to the base. This is done by placing an isolator between the vibration source and the base. The model for this kind of vibration isolation is shown as below. We are most interested in isolating the force from transmitting to the base. Force transmissibility is a measure to characterize how good the isolator works.

Isolating Dynamic Forces from Transmitting to Ground

Vibration Absorber

A vibration absorber is used to protect the primary system from steadystate harmonic disturbance. By attaching the absorber to the primary system which is modeled as a SDOF system, the new system becomes a two DOF system as shown in the model below. Depending on the driving frequency of the original system, the absorber needs to be carefully tuned, that is, to choose adequate values of absorber mass and stiffness, so that the motion of the original mass is a minimum.

Vibration Absorber Tuning Simulation Software Vibration absorber model:

Vibration Damping
What is damping? Damping is the energy dissipation properties of a material or system under cyclic stress. Active damping and passive damping:
Active damping: Active damping refers to energy dissipation from the system by external means, such as controlled actuator, etc.

Passive damping: Passive damping refers to energy dissipation within the structure by add-on damping devices such as isolator, by structural joints and supports, or by structural member's internal damping. Material damping and system damping: Material damping: Energy dissipation in a volume of macro-continuous media. System damping: Energy dissipation in the total structure. in addition to damping due to materials, it also includes energy dissipation effects of joints, fasteners, and interfaces. Damping Measurement: There are many methods for measuring the damping of a vibtation system. Logarithmic decrement method and bandwidth meathod are introduced here. Logarithmic decrement method is used to measure damping in time domain. In this method, the free vibration displacement amplitude history of a system to an impulse is measured and recorded. A typical free decay curve is shown as below.Logarithmic decrement is the natural logarithmic value of the ratio of two adjacent peak values of displacement in free decay vibration.

To estimate damping ratio from frequency domain, we may use half-power bandwidth method. In this method, FRF amplitude of the system is obtained first.Corresponding to each natural frequency, there is a peak in FRF amplitude. 3 dB down from the peak there are two point corresponding to half power point, as shown in the figure below. The more the damping, the more the frequency range between this two point. Halfpower bandwidth BD is defined as the ratio of the frequency range between the two half power points to the natural frequency at this mode.

Damping in Machine Tools: Damping in machine tools basically is derived from two sources--material damping and interfacial slip damping. Material damping is the damping inherent in the materials of which the machine is constructed. The magnitude of material damping is small comparing to the total damping in machine tools. A typical damping ratio value for material damping in machine tools is 0.003. It accounts for approximately 10% of the total damping. The interfacial damping results from the contacting surfaces at bolted joints and sliding joints. This type of damping accounts for approximately 90% of the total damping. Among the two types of joints, sliding joints contribute most of the damping. Welded joints usually provide very small damping which may be negleted when considering damping in joints.

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