Vibration Engineering

BY: ENGR. RAY H. MALONJAO, MEng

Terminologies
 1. Vibrations are oscillations of a mechanical or structural system about an
equilibrium position.
 2. A restoring force, or a conservative force developed in a potential energy
element, pulls the element back toward equilibrium.
 3. Non-conservative forces can dissipate or add energy to the system. The
friction force is non-conservative and dissipates energy
 4. Dynamics can be thought as having two parts, one being kinematics and
the other being kinetics. While kinematics deals with the mathematical
description of motion, kinetics deals with the physical laws that govern a
motion.
 5. The minimum number of independent coordinates needed to describe the
motion of a system is called the degrees of freedom of a system.
FBD Diagram of Vibration System
Certain implicit assumptions are used in the modeling of most physical systems of
vibrating mechanical elements. These assumptions are taken for granted and rarely
mentioned explicitly. Implicit assumptions used throughout this book include:

 1. Physical properties are continuous functions of spatial variables

 2. The earth is an inertial reference frame, thus allowing application of Newton’s
 3. Relativistic effects are ignored. (Certaintly, velocities encountered in the
modeling of vibrations problems are much less than the speed of light).
 4. Gravity is the only external force field. The acceleration due to gravity is 9.81
m/s2 (32.2 ft/s2) on the surface of the earth.
 5. The systems considered are not subject to nuclear reactions, chemical
reactions, external heat transfer, or any other source of thermal energy.
 6. All materials are linear, isotropic, and homogeneous.
 7. The usual assumptions of mechanics of material apply. This includes plane
sections remaining plane for beams in bending and circular sections under
torsional loads do not warp. laws in a reference frame fixed to the earth.
Kinematics of Particles
Planar Rigid-Body Kinematics
Kinematics of a planar pendulum
4- Generalized Coordinates and its
Degrees of Freedom
 1. Free particle in space
 -the generalized coordinates
 - Any free particle in space has three degrees of freedom.
4- Generalized Coordinates and its
Degrees of Freedom
 2. Planar pendulum
 -Forthiscase,thecoordinatesarechosenasxp
andyp.However,sincethependulum length is constant,
these coordinates are not independent of each other
because

 - Since only one independent variable or coordinate is

needed to describe the pendulum’s motion, a planar
pendulum of constant length has one degree of
freedom.
4- Generalized Coordinates and its
Degrees of Freedom
 3. dumbbell in plane
 - Here, the coordinates are chosen as xa, ya, xb,
and yb, where this set includes the coordinates of
each of the two particles in the plane. Since the
length of the dumbbell is constant, only three of
these coordinates are independent.

 - A minimum of three of the four coordinates is

needed to describe the motion of the dumbbell in
the plane. Hence, a dumbbell in the plane has
three degrees of freedom.
4- Generalized Coordinates and its
Degrees of Freedom
 4. free rigid body in plane.
 - The generalized coordinates
specify the translation of the center of mass of the
rigid body. Apart from these two generalized
coordinates, another generalized coordinate

 - Hence, a rigid body that is free to move in the

plane has three degrees of freedom.