Vibration Engineering Coursework 2

Question 1

k1 = 2 × ( 2 × 3 × E × I / 63 ) = 250000 N / m

k2 = 2 × ( 12 × E × I / 33 ) = 4000000 N / m

k3 = 2 × ( 12 × E × I / 33 ) = 4000000 N / m

The system properties, containing the natural frequencies are as shown below calculated by NDOF:

Unit Normalised mode shapes calculated by NDOF:

Question 2

Modal Masses Calculated by NDOF :

m1 = 19510 kg m2 = 10180 kg m3 = 10070 kg

Modal Mass 3 Calculated by Hand :

Transpose of Shapefunction3 × Mass Matrix x Shapefunction3

m3 = 1 × 4000 × 1 + 0.811 × 8000 × 0.811 + 0.317 × 8000 × 0.317

m3 = 10065 kg

Forced Response of the Nodes :

This response is called a beating response. In Single degree of freedom systems, this is caused by the
very close frequencies of the natural frequency and the forcing frequency. Because the frequencies
are not exactly the same, during each cycle, the external force gives energy for a long time, but then
acts on the opposite direction for a little time. And with each cycle, the difference of the forcing and
the resisting of the external force, to the natural harmonic motion increases. After some time, it gets
exactly mirrored, this time, the external force starts to resist the natural harmonic motion for a long
time, but feeds it a little bit. This causes the nodal displacements to increase for a while, and then to
decrease. After that beating is over, the same cycle starts over again.

Also when we examine the force vector [ 9870 ; 2882 ; -8182 ], we see that it is an integer multiply of
the second mode shape. ( i.e. 9870 x [1 ; 0.2920 ; -0.8290 ] )

We know that the mode shapes are linearly independent, and when the generalised displacement
functions are calculated, the force vector will also be orthogonal to the shape functions one and
three ( since it is the same vector with the mode shape 2 vector only multiplied by 9870) , so the
contribution from the first and the third mode will be zero. The structure vibrates in 2nd mode only.

Since the 2nd modes frequency is very close (but not exactly the same) to the forcing frequency and
is the mode that vibrates the structure, we get a beating response.
To visualise what that has been tried to explain, the total displacements at each nodes caused by the
different modes are: (mode 1, mode 2 and mode 3 respectively )

Note that, the y axes of the graphs have different scale. The contributions from the third and first
mode are around 20 and 100 times less than the second mode respectively.

It can also be here seen that, the modal contributions from the first mode and the third mode are
zero. The errors are caused by round-offs by MatLAB. Also its clear that the beating response is
dieing slowly, this is due to the damping.