SINGLE-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEM RESPONSE

TO SINE-ON-RANDOM VIBRATION

By Tom Irvine
Email: [email protected]

August 13, 2008

Introduction

Consider a single degree-of-freedom system.

&&
x

k c
&&
y

Figure 1.

where

m = mass
c = viscous damping coefficient
k = stiffness
x = absolute displacement of the mass
y = base input displacement

Assume that the amplification factor is Q=10. Allow the natural frequency to be an independent
variable. Three natural frequencies are considered: 100, 200, 400 Hz.

The system is subjected to simultaneous sine and random base excitation per the specification in
Figure 2.

Calculate the SDOF response in both the time and frequency domains.

1
Specification

SINE-ON-RANDOM SPECIFICATION
COMBINED OVERALL LEVEL = 12.2 GRMS

1 100
Sine 15 G peak (Right Scale)
PSD 6.1 GRMS (Left Scale)

15
0.1 10
ACCEL (G /Hz)

ACCEL (G)
2

0.01 1

0.001 0.1
20 100 200 1000 2000

FREQUENCY (Hz)

Figure 2.

Table 1.
PSD, 6.1 GRMS, 60 seconds
Frequency Accel
(Hz) (G^2/Hz)
20 0.01

80 0.04

350 0.04

2000 0.007

2
Time Domain Synthesis

SYNTHESIZED TIME HISTORY SINE-ON-RANDOM SPECIFICATION

OVERALL LEVEL = 12.2 GRMS MIN = -39.1 G MAX = 44.8 G KURTOSIS = 2.1

250

200

150

100

50
ACCEL (G)

-50

-100

-150

-200

-250
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

TIME (SEC)

Figure 3.

A time history was synthesized in Figure 3 to meet the specification in Figure 2. The time
history was shortened to 30 seconds for brevity.

A close-up view is given in Figure 4.

The corresponding histogram is shown in Figure 5. The histogram has a somewhat symmetric,
bimodal shape.

3
 SYNTHESIZED TIME HISTORY SINE-ON-RANDOM SPECIFICATION
OVERALL LEVEL = 12.2 GRMS MIN = -39.1 G MAX = 44.8 G KURTOSIS = 2.1

50
ACCEL (G)

-50
10.00 10.05 10.10 10.15 10.20

TIME (SEC)
Figure 4.

HISTOGRAM SINE-ON-RANDOM SYNTHESIS

20000

16000

12000
COUNTS

8000

4000

0
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50

ACCEL (G)

Figure 5.

4
 PSD SINE-ON-RANDOM SPECIFICATION

100
PSD Synthesis 12.2 GRMS
PSD Specification 6.1 GRMS

10

1
ACCEL (G /Hz)
2

0.1

0.01

0.001
20 100 200 1000 2000

FREQUENCY (Hz)

Figure 6.

The PSD of the synthesis is compared to that of the specification in Figure 6.

Note that the G^2/Hz amplitude at 200 Hz depends on the ∆f bandwidth. There is no exact way
to convert pure sine G levels into G^2/Hz levels.

5
Time Domain Response, fn =100 Hz

SDOF RESPONSE (fn=100 Hz, Q=10) TO SYNTHESIZED TIME HISTORY

OVERALL LEVEL = 8.6 GRMS MIN = -33.7 G MAX = 33.0 G KURTOSIS = 2.8

250

200

150

100

50
ACCEL (G)

-50

-100

-150

-200

-250
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

TIME (SEC)

Figure 7.

HISTOGRAM SDOF RESPONSE (fn = 100 Hz, Q = 10)

30000

20000
COUNTS

10000

0
-50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50

ACCEL (G)
Figure 8.

6
Time Domain Response, fn =200 Hz

SDOF RESPONSE (fn=200 Hz, Q=10) TO SYNTHESIZED TIME HISTORY

OVERALL LEVEL = 107.4 GRMS MIN = -189 G MAX = 191 G KURTOSIS = 1.5

1500

1000

500
ACCEL (G)

-500

-1000

-1500
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

TIME (SEC)
Figure 9.

HISTOGRAM SDOF RESPONSE (fn = 200 Hz, Q = 10)

15000

10000
COUNTS

5000

0
-200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200

ACCEL (G)
Figure 10.

7
Time Domain Response, fn =400 Hz

SDOF RESPONSE (fn=400 Hz, Q=10) TO SYNTHESIZED TIME HISTORY

OVERALL LEVEL = 20.6 GRMS MIN = -87 G MAX = 83 G KURTOSIS = 2.7

500
ACCEL (G)

-500
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

TIME (SEC)
Figure 11.

HISTOGRAM SDOF RESPONSE (fn = 400 Hz, Q = 10)

25000

20000

15000
COUNTS

10000

5000

0
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100

ACCEL (G)
Figure 12.

8
Frequency Domain Response

The frequency domain calculations are performed using the equations in Appendix A. Each
Combined Response value is the “square root of the sum of the squares.”

The Combined Response values agree very closely with the corresponding levels calculated in
time domain.

Table 2. Response Levels from Frequency Domain Analysis

Response to Response to Combined

fn (Hz) Sine Random Response
(GRMS) (GRMS) (GRMS)
100 3.6 7.82 8.6

200 106.8 11.18 107.3

400 14.1 14.9 20.5

References

1. T. Irvine, A Method for Power Spectral Density Synthesis, Rev B, Vibrationdata, 2000.
2. T. Irvine, An Introduction to the Vibration Response Spectrum Rev C, Vibrationdata,
2000.
3. T. Irvine, The Steady-state Response of Single-degree-of-freedom System to a Harmonic
Base Excitation, Vibrationdata, 2004.

9
 APPENDIX A

Variables

ξ = fraction of critical damping

fn = natural frequency

fi = base excitation frequency

ρi = non-dimensional frequency parameter

A = sine acceleration amplitude

ŶAPSD = PSD base input acceleration

&x& GRMS = overall acceleration GRMS response

Response to Sine Vibration

The peak response is

1 + (2ξρi )2
&x& = A , ρ i = fi / f n (A-1)
2
⎛⎜1 − ρ ⎞⎟ + ( 2ξρ )
2 2
⎝ i ⎠ i

The corresponding RMS value is calculated by multiply the peak response by 0.7071.

Equation (A-1) is taken from Reference 3.

10
Response to Random Vibration

The overall acceleration response is

N ⎧ 1 + ( 2 ξρi ) 2 ⎫⎪
⎪
&x& GRMS (f n , ξ ) = ∑ ⎨⎪[ 1−ρ 2 ] 2 + [ 2 ξρ ] 2 ⎬⎪ ŶA PSD (fi )Δfi , ρi = fi / f n (A-2)
i =1 ⎩ i i ⎭

Equation (A-2) is taken from Reference 2.

11
 APPENDIX B

Kurtosis is a parameter that describes the shape of a random variable’s histogram or its
equivalent probability density function.

The kurtosis for a time series Yi is

n
∑ [Yi − μ]4
Kurtosis = i =1
nσ 4

where

μ = mean
σ = standard deviation
n = number of samples

The term in the numerator is the “fourth moment about the mean.”
A pure sine time history has a kurtosis of 1.5.
A time history with a normal distribution has a kurtosis of 3.
Some alternate definitions of kurtosis subtract a value of 3 so that a normal distribution will have
a kurtosis of zero.
A kurtosis larger than 3 indicates that the distribution is more peaked and has heavier tails than a
normal distribution with the same standard deviation.

12