Vibrations and noise

354 Practical 1 report

Single
degree
Vibration
andofnoise 354
freedom
Practicalexperiment
1: Final report
Single degree of freedom experiment

J.H. Basson

17119979

20 August 2014

Delivered by: J.H. Basson

Student number: 17119979
Date: 20 Augustus 2014

Department Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

University Stellenbosch

2010 Fakulteit Ingenieurswese, Universiteit

Stellenbosch
2010 Faculty of Engineering, Stellenbosch
University

Abstract

Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

Stellenbosch University
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Table of Contents
1.

Introduction.............................................................................................................................1

List of figures

List of tables

Nomenclature

1. Introduction
Vibration and noise is encountered in everyday life. Systems react to vibration in a variety of
ways that can lead to it taking damage. It is therefore important to be able to predict how a
system will react to vibration.
Vibration is the periodic back-and-forth motion of the particles of an elastic body, commonly
resulting when a physical system is displaced from its equilibrium condition and allowed to
respond to the forces that tend to restore equilibrium (Vibration, 2014).
A single degree of freedom (SDOF) system can be used as a simplification of vibrating
systems in order to predict its response.
The ideal SDOF system consists of a mass and a spring and possibly a dashpot (SDOF
Vibration, [S.a.]). The SDOF system setup used for this experiment has no external forces
acting upon the system and no dampers (including dashpots).
The dynamic characteristics of a SDOF system were determined experimentally. These
characteristics include the spring stiffness, natural frequency, internal damping, and mass of
the system.
This report can be read alongside reports of previous years that are also based on experiments
conducted by third year students taking vibration and noise 354 as a subject at the mechanical
engineering faculty of Stellenbosch University.
This report will show how the values were measured through use of hardware and software or
will be calculated numerically. The reduced data values will be compared to the measured
values.
This report will help the reader understand how a SDOF system reacts to vibration and what
the factors are that influence the response.
S kortliks wat in elke hoofstuk staan.

2. Literature review and theoretical background

This section will cover theory that is essential for the readers understanding of the SDOF
system used during the experiment.
The system can be visualized and simplified with a free body diagram. Figure 3 shows the
free body diagram of the system. The spring has an initial static displacement due to the mass
stretching it out. All the external forces acting upon the system is also shown. D.J. Inman
(2014: 33) states that the response of a spring-mass model will oscillate indefinitely. Every
day observations indicate otherwise and predict that a free oscillating system will die out to
zero motion. A mathematical model of a spring-mass system will therefore be inadequate.
There was no damper in the setup, but the system still experienced damping due to a friction
force between the mass and the centre support shown in figure 1. This friction force is
described by Inman (2014: 93) as sliding friction and leads to Coulomb damping. Inman
(2014: 97) also shows that the decay that a system experiences due to Coulomb damping is
linear.
However, measurements of the system response indicate that the system experiences
exponential decay which is associated with viscous damping. The reasons for this will be
1

discussed later. The chosen model is a SDOF system with viscous damping indicated by a
dashpot. A schematic of the chosen model can be seen below in figure 2.

Figure 3: Free body diagram of a SDOF system with

viscous damping.

Friction force

Figure 1: Experimental
setup with centre support.

Figure 2: Schematic of a single-degree-of-freedom

system with viscous damping indicated by a dashpot.
(Source: http://controls.ame.nd.edu/ame301/hw6/. Image
by Goodwine & Lucey)

A first order differential equation can be derived from figure 3. Newtons second law is used
as a starting point. It states that the time rate of change if the momentum of a body is equal in
both magnitude and direction to the force imposed on it (Newtons laws of motion, 2014). It is
assumed that the mass of the system does not change with time. Taking the initial disturbance
direction as positive downwards, Newtons second law can be written as:
+ F=m a

(1)

Using figure 3 and equation (1) yields:

F k F c +mg=m x
(2)

Assuming the spring exhibits linear characteristics, Hookes law can be used and the force
exerted on the system by the spring expressed as:
F k =k ( st + x)

(3)

The damping force is proportional to the velocity in a direction opposite that of the mass
motion (Inman, 2014: 34).
Fc =c x

(4)

Substituting equation (3) and (4) into (2) delivers:

k st kx c x +mg=m x

(5)

When the spring is at rest, the force exerted by the spring can be written as:
+ F=0

F k +mg=0
k st + mg=0

mg=kst

(6)

Substituting equation (6) into (5) delivers the systems equation of motion:
m x +c x +kx=0

(7)

D.J. Inman (2014: 35) defines the critical damping coefficient,

c cr

as

c cr =2 m n=2 km

where

is the undamped natural frequency. Another important variable of the system is

the damping ratio,

(8)

which is defined by

c
ccr

(9)

A system can be defined based upon its damping ratio. When 0< < 1 , the system is
underdamped and it will have a complex conjugate pair of roots and the solution of the
response will be in the form
x ( t )= A e t sin( d t + )
n

Where

and

(10)

are constants of integration and

is the damped natural

frequency
d=n 1 2

(11)

When =1 , the system is critically damped and the solution of the response will take the
following form
x ( t )=(a1 +a2 t ) e t
n

(12)

where

a1

a2

and

constants. The last case is when >1 . The system is called over

damped and the solution to equation (7) becomes

x ( t )=e t ( a1 e 1t +a2 e 1 t )
2

(13)

Inman (2014: 72) also defines the concept of logarithmic decrement, .

=ln

x (t )
x(t+T )

(14)

It provides a means to calculate the damping ratio from a dynamic test. Inman provides a
derivation of the logarithmic decrement in order to equate it to the damping ratio of a system.
=

4 2+

(15)

This holds true for the dynamic response of a systems displacement. The following
derivation proves that equation (15) holds true for the dynamic response of a systems
acceleration.
Assuming the system is underdamped, the solution will be equation (10). To find the solution
to the acceleration of the system, the derivative is taken from the derivative of equation (10).

n t

x ( t )=A n e

n t

sin ( d t + ) + A d e

cos(d t+ )

(16)