Coupled Pendula

1 Introduction
Simple harmonic oscillation is seen in nature at various places. A classic example of it is the
oscillations produced by the musical instruments. In this experiment we shall study the modes of
vibrations of a couple of pendula attached to each other by a spring. The attached spring do not let
these two pendula to vibrate independently. They start to influence one another. This influence is
called coupling. As they get coupled to one another they start to show di↵erent types of vibrations.
In this experiment we shall study di↵erent modes of these vibrations.
We see many practical examples of such systems. Consider a loud speaker where you drive a
membrane mechanically using an electrical vibration to produce sound. The membrane and the
electrical vibration has their own natural modes of oscillations. When one is driving the other (in a
microphone the membrane drives the electrical circuit), they are influencing each other and hence
they are coupled. We need to know how coupled oscillators work to build such a system. You can
think of several other examples.

2 Theoretical understanding
Assumptions
Here are a list of assumptions we use to discuss the theoretical understanding of the coupled
pendulum.

• Both pendula are identical. They have same mass, e↵ective length (distance between centre of
mass and pivot) and same fundamental oscillation period when set into swing independently.

• The planes of oscillations of the two pendula is same. The spring axis also lies in the same
plane.

• The horizontal distance between the two pendula rod, when they are stationary are same as
the length of the spring. The spring has no slag, neither it is stretched.

• We shall restrict ourselves to small oscillations.

Definitions
To start developing a mathematical theory of the system, let us level the right pendulum as 1 and
left as 2. Let us assume the followings. See Figure (1) for reference.

• L : length between the pendulum pivot point and the centre of mass.

• M : Mass of each pendulum.

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Figure 1: The left figure shows the arrangement and di↵erent parts of a pendulum. The figure in
right shows two pendula attached with a spring.

• I : Moment of inertia of the pendulum.

• l : distance between the pivot point and the point where the spring is attached, we shall call
this coupling length.

• ks : spring constant.

Let us assume the case when the pendulum 1 is at a position such that it is making an angle 1
with the vertical and the pendulum 2 is making an angle 2 . If we consider the pendulum 1 now,
there are two di↵erent torques acting on it, one is due to gravity, one because of the spring. The
restoring force due to gravity acts at the centre of mass of the pendulum and is give as

Fg = M g sin( 1) (1)

where g is the acceleration due to gravity. The corresponding torque will be

⌧g = M g L sin( 1) = M gL 1, (2)

for small angles. The initial position of the two ends of the spring is Q0 and P0 such that the
spring is not stretched or compressed. Now when the two pendula are making angles 1 and 2
with the vertical, the spring is either stretched or compressed. The amount of compression can be
calculated for small oscillations as l( 1 2 ) and hence the torque due to the spring will be

⌧s = ks l 2 ( 1 2) (3)

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Figure 2: The left figure shows the displacement of the two pendula. Right figure shows the
schematic diagrams of di↵erent forces acting on the pendula.

Similarly we can work out the torques acting on the second pendulum. The equations of motions
of the two pendula are
¨1 = !p2 1 !s2 ( 1 2) (4)
¨2 = !p2 2 !s2 ( 2 1 ),

where we have further used,

M gL ks l 2
!p2 = , !s2 = . (5)
I I
Notice that !s depends on the coupling length l linearly. Given di↵erent initial conditions, we now
can solve these two coupled di↵erential equations to see what modes of vibration the two pendula
will set in to.

2.1 Natural modes

We shall discuss the natural modes of oscillations for the system shortly. To make the discussion
easier, we define a new pair of variables + and , such that
1
+ = 1 + 2, 1 = ( + + ) (6)
2
1
= 1 2, 2 = ( + ).
2

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Figure 3: Initial conditions for the in-phase (left), out-of-phase (middle) and beat mode (right) are
shown.

We can write eqn. (4) into the following form using these new sets of variables as
¨+ + ! 2 = 0, ! + = !p (7)
+ +
q
¨ + !2 = 0, ! = 2 + 2! 2 .
!+ s

Interestingly, in terms of + and the equations are not coupled. We can write down the general
solutions as

+ = A+ cos(!+ t + +) (8)
= A cos(! t + ),

where A+ , etc are the amplitudes and phases of the oscillations. They depend on the initial
conditions.

In phase mode
If we displace both the pendula by same amount to one side and release it without giving any
angular velocity, the pendula are set into motion such that the relative distance between the two
pendula do not change with time. That is, the angles 1 = 2 for all time. This mode of oscillation
is called the in-phase mode of oscillation. Let us first try to understand qualitatively, what happens
in this case. As initially the pendula are moved to same angle, the spring is neither stretched nor
contracted. Hence at this position, the spring does not apply any force to either of the pendula. As
we release it from rest from this position, since the pendula are identical and the initial coupling force
is absent, their relative distance remains unchanged. The spring is never stretched or contracted.
The motion of the pendula are completely governed by the natural frequency of the individual
pendulum. Initial conditions for this mode are

at t = 0, 1 = 2 = 0, => + = 2 0, =0 (9)
˙1 = ˙2 = 0, => ˙+ = ˙ = 0.

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Figure 4: In-phase (left) and out-of-phase (right) vibrational modes of the coupled pendulum. The
values of !p and !s used here corresponds to time periods of 2 sec and 8 sec respectively.

Clearly, the will always be zero and the pendulum will have the following equations of motion

1 (t) = 2 (t) = 0 cos (!+ t) . (10)

The vibration is dictated only by the properties of the individual pendulum (!+ = !p ), the spring
has no influence on this motion.

Out of phase mode

If we displace both the pendula by same amount but now to opposite sides and release it without
giving any angular velocity, the pendula are set into motion such that the relative distance between
the two pendula change with time in a pure sinusoidal fashion. The angles 1 and 2 are equal
and opposite all the time. This mode of oscillation is called the out-of-phase mode of oscillation.
Qualitatively, what happens is that initially the spring is stretched by the maximum amount and
tries to bring the pendula back close to each other. Gravity also adds up to this motion. At all
subsequent times gravity and the spring acts in harmony. Initial conditions for this mode are

at t = 0, 1 = 2 = 0, => = 0,
+ =2 0 (11)
˙1 = ˙2 = 0, => ˙+ = ˙ = 0.

The + will always be zero and the pendula will have the following equations of motion

1 (t) = 2 (t) = 0 cos (! t) . (12)

Clearly, the vibration is dictated by the properties of the pendula and the spring together,
2ks 2
! 2 = !+
2
+ 2!s2 = !+
2
+ l . (13)
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A plot of l2 with ! 2 gives a straight line with y-intercept as !+ 2 . The frequency of this vibration

also depends on the value of the coupling length l, higher the value of l higher is the frequency. If
the spring is attached at the pivot point itself, i.e, l = 0, we will not have any e↵ect of the spring
and ! = !s .

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 As we see that in these two modes the system oscillates with either !+ (in phase) or ! (out
of phase) frequencies in pure sinusoidal motion. We call these as the fundamental frequencies of
oscillation. Any other initial conditions will have oscillations with both these frequencies and hence
they will not be pure sinusoidal.

Figure 5: Beat modes of vibration for the coupled pendula for di↵erent values of !s . The values of
!p used here corresponds to time periods of 2 sec. The values of !s correspond to the periods of
8 sec and 7.5 sec for the left and right plots respectively.

Beat mode
If we keep one of the pendula ( say 2) fixed at vertical position and move the other (say 1) by an
amount 0 and release it from rest, something interesting happens. At first 1 seems to set into
oscillation, but soon it’s amplitude reduces and 2 picks up oscillation. If you wait further, at a
point the amplitude of oscillation of 1 reduces to zero and 2 seems to swing with an amplitude of
0 . Soon enough amplitude of oscillation of 2 reduces and 1 start to oscillate. This pattern repeats.
As we see none of the pendula does any pure sinusoidal oscillation here. This is called the beat
mode of oscillation.
In this case the initial conditions are

at t = 0, 1 = 0 , 2 = 0. => + = = 0 (14)
˙1 = ˙2 = 0, => ˙+ = ˙ = 0.

Here, the amplitudes of the oscillations for both + and are same, but they will have their
corresponding frequencies, hence,

+ (t) = 0 cos (!+ t) (15)

(t) = 0 cos (! t)

. The corresponding solution for the individual pendulum will be

 
0 !+ + ! ! !+
1 (t) = [cos (!+ t) + cos (! t)] = 0 cos t cos t (16)
2 2 2
 
0 !+ + ! ! !+
2 (t) = [cos (!+ t) cos (! t)] = 0 sin t sin t ,
2 2 2

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where we see there are two di↵erent vibration frequencies, (! + !+ )/2 and (! !+ )/2,
hq i
!C = (! + !+ )/2 = !p2 + 2!s2 + !p /2 (17)
hq i
!B = (! !+ )/2 = !p2 + 2!s2 !p /2.

Clearly the frequency !C is faster and produces more number of oscillations in a given time, this is
usually called the coupling frequency. As the other frequency !B is slower, it essentially modulates
the amplitudes of the oscillation given by the !C . This is called the bit frequency.
As we have seen before the frequency ! depends on the coupling length l as ! 2 = !p2 + 2kI s l2 .
Hence the amount of coupling changes as we change the value of l. A quantitative description of
the coupling strength is called the degree of coupling given by

! 2 !+
2
2!C !B
= 2 2 = !2 + !2 . (18)
! + !+ C B

The coupling strength is expected to change with the coupling length l.

3 Objective
• Estimate the value of !+ from in phase mode of oscillation.

• Estimate the values of ! from the out of phase mode of oscillation for di↵erent coupling
length l and hence estimate the value of !+ using eqn (16).

• Estimate the values of ! from the beat mode of oscillation for di↵erent coupling length l
and hence estimate the value of !+ using eqn (16).

• Estimate the values of the degree of coupling for di↵erent coupling length l and see how
varies with l.

4 Experimental setup
4.1 Pendulua
At the heart of the setup you have two pendula. These are made up of metal rods and at the end
you have two metal discs attached. The pendula are suspended from a hanger and they are free to
swing from the pivot points. The hanger is attached to the edge of the table with some complicated
clamping systems. Each of the pendula acts like a ‘compound pendulum’. There is a spring with
its ends attached to either of the pendula by means of a plastic bush clamp. The distance between
the point where it is attached to the pendulum rod and the pivot of the pendulum from where it
can swing can be changed. It is also possible to detach the spring from the pendulum.

4.2 Electrical contacts

We have two pendula and we would like to monitor and record their oscillations with time. There
is an electrical arrangement to do this. The monitoring arrangement has an external DC voltage
generator, a circuit at the pendulum hanger, an analogue to digital converter (the Cobra 3 interface)
and a computer to record the signal (as shown in Figure 7). Figure (7) shows a picture of the
circuit diagram given on the top of the pendulum hanger. The red and blue input points are for

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Figure 6: Di↵erent mechanical components, example of wrong alignment and adjustment procedures
are shown.

Figure 7: Di↵erent electrical components are shown.

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the positive and ground terminals of the external DC input. The output voltage is fed to the
analogue to digital converter (COBRA 3 interface) though the yellow terminals. Figure (7) also
show a simplified version of the same circuit. Let us call the input voltage, i.e the voltage between
the red and blue terminals as V and the output voltage, i.e the voltage measured between the
yellow terminals as v. Two resistances Rb and Rp are connected in parallel between the positive
and ground terminals of the input bias voltage. Rp is a variable resistance where the adjustment
terminal A is directly attached to the pendulum. At the vertical position of the pendulum the
adjustment terminal is exactly at the middle of the resistance Rp and hence v = V /2. Oscillation
of the pendulum changes the resistance between the positive end and the point A. If for a given
amplitude of oscillation (we assume here that the oscillation is sinusoidal with an angular frequency
!) the maximum change in resistance is r, then the voltage at terminal A will be
" #
1 r
vA = + sin(!t) V. (19)
2 Rp
If the adjustment terminal at Rb is kept at exactly the half value of the resistance, the voltage at
the terminal B will be vB = V /2 and hence,
r
v = vA vB = sin(!t)V, (20)
Rp
which is directly proportional to the oscillation amplitudes of the pendulum. However, here we are
interested in recording two oscillations from the two pendula simultaneously. It would be useful if
we can provide a selectable but di↵erent o↵set to the output voltages v of the two pendula such
that the two oscillation curves separate out. This is done by changing the value of the variable
resistance. Hence, if a resistance of f Rb is dialed ( f < 1.), the out put voltage is given as
" ✓ ◆#
r 1
v = vA vB = sin(!t) + f V. (21)
Rp 2
r
In this condition, the amplitude of the sinusoidal variation in voltage at the output terminal is Rp V
⇣ ⌘
and it has an o↵set of 12 f V . A typical input voltage of 10 V is used in this experiment. The
output analogue signal is sent to a analogue to digital converter (the Cobra 3 interface). The time
division and the voltage division of the AtoD converter can be chosen as required. The digitized
signal then is fed to a computer in which you can monitor and measure the oscillations. A dedicated
software called ‘measure’ is used to view, record and analyze the time series data.

5 Procedure and Precautions

5.1 Mechanical Arrangements
• Attach the spring at a distance of 50 cm form the pivot point and check if the spring is neither
stretched or compressed. In such condition distance between the two pendula rods are same
at the pivot point and at the point where the spring is attached. Make sure this is true, else
contact the lab instructor.
• Check if the suspension point of both the pendula are such that they are hung from the same
height.
• Make sure that the plane of vibration of the two pendula are same. To do this you have to
check the following things:

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 – Check if the top of the pendulum hanger are in label using a spirit level.
– Check if the two hanger are at the same distance and at same angle, you can do this by
looking at the two hanger form one side. Figure (6) shows a missalign condition.
• Take a stopwatch and get familiar with how to start and stop it. Now try to start it and stop
immediately. Note down the reading after you stop the watch. Do this for ten times. The
average value of the ten measurements gives your reaction time.
• Detach the spring. Set the left pendulum into oscillation. Using a stop watch calculate the
time for 20 oscillations. Do the same exercise for the right pendulum. If the time of 20
oscillations do not match, you need to screw or unscrew the disks at the end of the pendulum
rod to change its e↵ective length L. Try doing this untill the time periods of 20 oscillations
match within your reaction time.
At this point your mechanical set up should be ready to use. Do not disturb the set up other than
changing the coupling length l when required.

5.2 Circuit connections

The circuit arrangements are quite simple, you should read section 2.3 for the working principle
of the circuit (Figure 7). The input voltage can be set to 10 V and you can adjust the bias voltage
such that the two curves representing oscillation of the two pendula in the ”measure” monitoring
window are not overlapping. If you are still facing problem contact the lab instructor.

Figure 8: Screenshot of the measure software showing the initial settings needed to record the data
with Cobra 3 interface.

5.3 Measure software settings

As you open a new measurement window in the measure software it will ask for the settings of the
analogue to digital converter and display of the data. Figure 8 shows the corresponding software

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interface and the values you may choose for the measurement.

5.4 Recording of data

1. Set the coupling length to be l = 30 cm and attach the spring.
2. Set the pendula into oscillation in in-phase mode. To do this you have to displace the two
pendula by same angle in same direction and release from rest (Figure 3 left). One way of
doing this is by placing a ruler behind the pendulua (Figure 6) and see the readings at the
scales when the pendula are at rest. Now displace the pendulua by 3 cm in same direction
against the scale and release. You can check the two time series curves you get in the measure
software. They must be like Figure 4-left. If there is amplitude modulation in the sinusoidal
time series, repeat the initialization procedure, until you get no amplitude variation.
3. Record the time series data for two minutes. Make a folder with your group name for saving
the data. Save the data in a file called “in phase 30s”.
4. Use the same procedure to record the time series data for out-of-phase mode for two minutes.
Remember to met the initial condition of the out-of-phase mode you need to displace the
pendula to opposite direction initially. Save this data in a separate file with an appropriate
name.
5. Repeat the same exercise for the beat mode of vibration. However, as the beat mode will
have !B significantly lower than the frequencies of the in-phase or out-of-phase modes, you
need to record the time series data for five minutes. Save the data.
6. Repeat the above exercise for four more di↵erent values of the coupling lengths like 40, 50, 60, 70
cm.

6 Calculations
Fourier analysis
Fourier analysis is very commonly used to find out the frequency content in a time series signal. To
discuss the basic theory behind this technique, we shall consider a particular example. We choose
time series data of the right pendulum in the beat mode of oscillation. The recorded voltage is
directly proportional to the quantity 1 (t) as given in eqn (19)
0
1 (t) = [cos(!+ t) + cos(! t)] . (22)
2
Clearly, the time series signal has two di↵erent frequencies !+ and ! , where ! > !+ . First
step in the Fourier analysis is to do a Fourier transform of this signal, and get the corresponding
frequency series. Z
1 (!) = dt exp [ i!t] 1 (t). (23)

Here, limits of the integration runs from 1 ! 1. However, for all practical cases there is a
time window in which the measurements are done. In our case this is about five minutes. The
limited time data gives a natural constrain on how accurately the frequencies of the signals can be
measured. Modulus square of 1 (!) gives the S(!) of the signal, and usually referred to the as the
spectra of the signal.
S(!) =| 1 (!) |2 . (24)

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In case of the beat mode of oscillation discussed above, the spectral signature will be proportional
to the sum of a pair of Dirac delta functions given as

S(!) / (! !+ ) + (! ! ). (25)

Hence, we can easily find these two frequencies from the spectra of the time series data.

Figure 9: In left time series data of oscillation of the right pendulum for the beat mode of oscillation
is plotted for a coupling length of 40 cm. The corresponding spectra is shown in right with the
frequencies of oscillations.

In practice, the time series data is discrete (in our case taken at an interval of 4 ms) and
also finite (in this case with an extent of about five minutes). Hence we perform discrete Fourier
transform of the time series data while doing Fourier analysis. The finite extent of the signal
essentially makes the peaks in the spectra (at the location of the Dirac delta function) broader
and sets the accuracy to which the frequencies are measured. Figure (9-left) shows a part of the
time series data for the beat mode of oscillation with a coupling length of 40 cm. Notice that
the amplitude of oscillation decays with time. This is mostly because of the viscous damping by
air. Logarithm of the spectra of this time series is plotted against the frequency (f = !/2⇡ ) in
Figure (9-right). The two vertical dashed lines marks the position of the two peaks in the spectra.
They correspond to !+ and !+ . We have also mentioned the measured values of these frequencies
at the top left corner of the plot.

Using Measure
We understand the principles of the Fourier analysis now, let us discuss how to use the measure
software to perform this analysis. We shall use the same time series data for representation purpose
here.
• Load the time series data you want to analyze in the measure software by choosing the right
file from the open measurement option in the file tab.

• Select either U 1 or U 2 from the tool bar to analyze either left or right pendulum data.

• Choose Fourier Analysis from the Analysis tab, select suppress o↵set and calculate. It
will open a graph window like Figure (10), where the peak of the curve correspond to the

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Figure 10: Screenshot of the measure software showing the spectra calculated by the fourier analysis
program in it. The analysis window for the peak analysis is also shown.

frequency of oscillation. The actual graph may look di↵erent as it plots to quite
higher values of frequencies, zoom into the position where you have the peaks.

• Choose display option in the measurement tab and set both x and y axis to show 6 digits.

• Use the selection tool to select around on of the peak. Use the Peak analysis from the
Analysis tab and click on calculate to get the peak value of the frequency. See Figure (10).

Using the procedure discussed above find the values of di↵erent !s as given in Table (1). Note
that the measure software calculates the values of the frequency f , not the angular
frequencies !. You need to calculate the angular frequency by ! = 2⇡f .

in phase out of phase beat mode

length !+ ! !+ !
(cm) (Hz) (Hz) (Hz) (Hz)
30 - - - -
40 - - - -
50 - - - -
60 - - - -
70 - - - -
mean - mean -

Table 1: Results of the Fourier analysis with the measure software are tabulated.

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7 Calculations, errors and result
• Calculate mean of the !+ from the measurements of the in-phase and beat mode of oscillations
(second and fourth column in Table 1). For a sample data the value comes out to be:
in
!+ = 3.19 ± 0.08 Hz
beat
!+ = 3.18 ± 0.05 Hz.
Here the errors quoted are calculated from the di↵erence in the two extreme values for each
case.

Figure 11: ! 2 in (Hz2 ) is plotted against l2 in (cm2 ) for di↵erent values of coupling length for (left)
out of phase and the beat mode (right) of oscillation. The best fit straight lines are plotted as blue
solid lines.

Figure 12: Degree of coupling plotted against the coupling length.

• Plot ! 2 as a function of l2 (Figure 1q-left) using the measurements from the out of phase
mode of oscillation. Use least square regression analysis (see general instruction) to find the
best fit value of !+ and the corresponding error.

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 • Repeat above using the measurements from the beat mode of oscillations.

• Compare the values of !+ measured by the above methods in the Table (2).

in phase out phase beat mode

!+ (mean) (curve)
(Hz) - - - -

Table 2: Values of !+ calculated using di↵erent methods.

• Calculate the degree of coupling using the values of !+ and ! estimated from the beat
mode of oscillations (eqn. 21) for di↵erent coupling lengths l.

l !+ !
(cm) (Hz) (Hz)
30 - - -
40 - - -
50 - - -
60 - - -
70 - - -

Table 3: Table to calculate .

• Plot the degree of coupling as a function of the coupling length l (Figure 12).

8 Discussion and thoughts

We have already discussed about the precautions and care needed for this experiment. I will leave
you with the observations and you can figure out the reasons for these.

• Figure (10) shows that there is a decrease in the amplitude with time. This can be due to
the damping by air. How can you model the air damping ? What other reasons for damping
can be there ?

• How the damping will a↵ect the measurement of the spectra and the natural frequencies ?

• Sometimes you see there is a small second peak in the in-phase or out-of-phase spectra. What
is the reason for it ?

• What is the general way of increasing the accuracy in the measurement ?

• What is the functional dependence of on l ? What should be the value of at l = 0.

• What do you expect to see if you plot the amplitudes of the two pendula in x and y axes ?
How will this plot change for the three modes studied here ?

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