Harmonic Excitation

1 Introduction to Harmonic Excitation

In the previous chapters, the only force present was the force of the spring. Although we also considered gravity, this was a constant force and thus not very interesting. What will happen if we cause a timedependent external force Fe (t) on the mass? In this case the dierential equation for an undamped motion should be rewritten to mx + kx = Fe (t). (1.1) We can get about any motion, depending on the external force. In reality external forces are often harmonic. We therefore assume that e cos t, Fe (t) = F (1.2) where is the angular frequency of the external force. To solve this dierential equation, we rst need to nd the homogeneous solution. This solution is already known from previous chapters though. So we focus on the particular solution xp (t). We assume that it can be written as xp (t) = x p cos t. Inserting this in the dierential equation will give x p = e 1 F 2 m (n 2 ) xp (t) = e F 1 cos t. 2 m (n 2 ) (1.4) (1.3)

If we combine this with the general solution to the homogeneous problem, we nd that x(t) = e v0 1 F (cos t cos n t) . sin n t + x0 cos n t + 2 2 ) n m (n (1.5)

A very important thing can be noticed from this equation. If n , then xp (t) and thus also x(t) . This phenomenon is called resonance and is dened to occur if = n . It is something engineers should denitely prevent.

Resonance

When looking at equation 1.5 we can see that it is undened for = n . What happens if we force a system to vibrate at its natural frequency? To nd this out, we set = n . The dierential equation now becomes e F 2 x + n x(t) = cos n t. (2.1) m e /m cos n t. If we try a solution of the form xp (t) = x p cos n t, we will only nd the equation 0 = F So there are no solutions of the assumed form. Instead, lets try to assume that xp (t) = x p t sin n t. We now nd that e e F F x p = xp (t) = t sin n t. (2.2) 2mn 2mn What we get is a vibration in which the amplitude increases linearly with time. So as the time t increases, also the amplitude of the motion increases. This continues until the system cant sustain the large amplitudes anymore and will fail.

Beat Phenomenon

When the external force isnt vibrating at exactly the natural frequency of a system, but only close to it, also interesting things occur. First lets dene the two variables and as = n 2 and = n + . 2 (3.1)

Lets once more consider equation 1.5. If we have no initial displacement or velocity (x0 = 0 and v0 = 0), then we can rewrite this equation to 2 e e 1 F 1 F sin (t) sin ( t) = 2 sin 2 2 2 2 ) m (n ) m (n 2 t sin T1 2 t . T2 (3.2)

As n also 0 and n . So it follows that T1 will become very large, while T2 is close to the natural frequency of the system. Since T1 is so large, we can dene the amplitude of the vibration as A(t) = 2 e 1 F sin 2 2 ) m (n 2 t . T1 (3.3)

So we now have a rapid oscillation with a slowly varying amplitude. This phenomenon is called the beat phenomenon and one variation of the amplitude is called a beat. As the forcing frequency goes closer to the natural frequency n , both the amplitude and the period of a beat increase.

Harmonic Excitation of Damped Systems

Lets involve damping in our equations. We then get e cos t mx + cx + kx = F

(4.1)

Lets assume our particular solution can be written as xp (t) = X cos (t ) . Inserting this in the dierential equation, and solving for X and , will eventually give X= e F m 1
2 (n 2 2 )

(4.2)

and + (2n )
2

= arctan

2n 2 2 n

(4.3)

To nd the general solution set, add xp (t) up to the solution of the homogeneous equation and use initial conditions to solve for the coecients A and . Lets dene the (dimensionless) frequency ratio as r= We can now rewrite X and to X= e F k 1 (1
2 r2 )

. n

(4.4)

and + (2r)
2

= arctan

2r 1 r2

(4.5)

If r 1 then X goes to a given maximum value. This maximum value strongly depends on the damping ratio . For large values of , resonance is hardly a problem. However, if is small, resonance can still occur. 2

Sinusoidal Forcing Functions

We have up to know only considered forcing functions involving a cosine. Of course forcing functions can also be expressed using a sine. Lets examine the forcing function e sin t. Fe (x) = F The particular solution to the (damped) dierential equation then becomes xp (t) = X sin (t ) . The variables X and are still the same as in equation 4.5. (5.2) (5.1)

Base Excitation

Lets now suppose no external force is acting on the mass. Instead the base on which the spring is connected, is moving by an amount xb (t), as shown in gure 1.

Figure 1: Denition of variables in base excitation. The elongation of the spring is now not given by just x(t), but by x(t) xb (t). Identically, its velocity with respect to the ground is now x (t) x b (t). So this makes the dierential equation describing the problem 2 2 x + 2n x + n x = 2n x b (t) + n xb (t). (6.1) Often the base excitation is harmonic, so we assume that xb (t) = x b sin b t. This makes the dierential equation
2 2 x + 2n x + n x = 2n b x b cos b t + n x b sin b t.

(6.2)

(6.3)

We have two nonhomogeneous parts. We can therefore nd two separate particular solutions for the e /m = 2n b (or identically F e /k = 2r), then we dierential equation (one for each part). If we set F have exactly the same problem as we have seen earlier with the cosine forcing function (equation 4.2). 2 e /m = n e /k = x If we, on the other hand, set F x b (or identically F b ), then we have the same problem as we just saw with the sine forcing function (equation 5.2). Add the two solutions up to get the total particular solution xp (t) = 2rx b (1 r2 ) + (2r)
2 2

cos (t ) +

x b (1 r2 ) + (2r)
2 2

sin (t ) .

(6.4)

The value of is still the same as it was in equation 4.5. 3