HW 1

Problem 1.
Given the following beam-mass system: the beam is simply supported and massless with a length of L, and
the mass m is placed at the midspan of the beam.
(1) Suppose that the Young's Modulus of the beam is E, and the second moment of area (to be consistent
with the text,we will not call it the moment of inertia) is I. Determine the natural (circular) frequency (n) and
the natural period of the system in terms of m, L, E and I.
(2) Under the self-weight of the mass, one measures the STATIC displacement at the midspan of the beam
and records a 1 inch static displacement. Calculate the actual natural (circular) frequency n again and the
period Subscript Tn.

Problem 2
Given the following 1-story frame-structure system: the columns are massless, fixed to the ground, with I =
0.1 m4, E = 2104 MPa; the beam is assumed to be rigid (EI = ), and it carries a concentered mass of 2000 x
103 kg.
(1) Suppose that the frame system is only displaced in the lateral direction. Calculate the circular frequency
and the natural period of the system in the lateral direction.

(2) If one displaces the mass with a static lateral displacement of 1 cm (no velocity), write out the
displacement solution in the form of A Sin(n t + ). Then calculate the amplitudes of the velocity and the
acceleration, respectively.

(3) Without displacing the mass laterally, a velocity to the mass (no displacement) is prescribed. Calculate the
velocity such that the same amplitude of the displacement can be achieved as in (2). Also write out the
displacement solution in the form of A Sin(n t + ), and compare it with the solution form in (2).

Problem 3 (Matlab programming)

Two programming problems
(1) Summarize the above analytica procedures, and write a small function that takes the inputs of an
initial displacement, an initail velocity, and a natural frequency (n), and computes the dynamic
displacement as the output.
(2) Write a short script to call the function and obtain the output. Then plot the displacement solutions
you obtained from the previous problems (Problem 2 and 3), and plot them within one figure.
a. Hint: after using 'figure; plot(....)' for the first figure, use hold on; plot(....)' for the 2nd
figure, then you can overlay a second plot into the figure). Your time duration should be at
least 3-period long (i.e. the time should be from zero to at least 3 * Tn).
b. Another key thing is to decide a time interval for the time vector: the time vector may look
like this, t = linspace(0, 3 * Tn, Ns), which means dividing Ns times between 0 to 3 * Tn.
Or t = 0 : td : 3*Ts, where td is the time interval.
(3) In (2), when deciding the time vector,
a. If you use t = linspace(0, 3 * Tn, Ns), try to different number of data points, Ns = 1000,
100, 12, and 6 to the plot figures again
b. If you use t = 0 : td : 3*Ts, try to use different time intervals, td = 0.001, 0.1, Tn/4, Tn/2 to
plot the figures again
(4) Summarize the observations and conclusions.

The sample code

% For example:
init_disp = 1 / 100 % 1 cm
init_vel = 2; % 2 m /sec
Tn = 0.5; % sec
omega_n = 2 * pi / Tn;
% call your function
SDOF_disp_plot(init_disp, init_vel, omega_n);
% add your codes below to do plotings

% here to define a function, and save it in a different file with a filename

identical to the function name
function x = SDOF_disp_plot(init_disp, init_vel, omega_n) % a function with three
inputs, one is the init_displacement, the other is the init_velocity, and the
specified natural fruquency
% step - 1 : calcuate the displacement amplitude
A = sqrt(init_disp^2 + (init_vel/omega_n)^2);
% step - 2: cacluate the phase angle
phi = atan(init_disp * omega_n / init_vel);
% add your scripts here... to calculate the dynamic output x