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IB Physics > Topic 4: Oscillations and Waves >

4. Damping and Resonance

Damped Harmonic Motion

If energy is removed from an oscillating system (by friction), its amplitude will decrease. This usually follows an
exponential decay pattern.

Task:

Play with this flash animation and screen print good graphs showing light, heavy and critical damping. Use the graphs
to define each situation (and this link for those of you who are ambitious!)

So what examples are there of damped SHM?

For some oscillators (e.g. clocks) we want minimum damping; for others (e.g. a vehicle shock absorbing system) we
want them to return to equilibrium as fast as possible.

The latter requires a unique value of the damping (‘critical damping’) so that the system returns to equilibrium without
overshooting; i.e. it gets to equilibrium in the minimum time without oscillating at all.

Overdamping prevents over-shooting and thus any oscillations, but by making the damping large enough the system
can take as long as you want to regain its starting equilibrium position.

Forced Vibrations and Resonance

While damping measures the energy loss from a vibrating system, it is also possible to put energy into a vibrating
system. This is called Driving or Forcing.

A forced vibration is one which has a periodic driving force applied to it.

Resonance is the phenomenon that occurs when the frequency of forced vibrations on an object matches the natural
frequency of that object, and produces a dramatic increase in amplitude.

Преведи
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Task:

Verify the shape of this graph using the flash experiment and playing with the variables.

The natural frequency of an object is the frequency it tends to vibrate at when a disturbing force is applied and then
removed.

breaking a wine glass using resonance

Try the applet: http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/resonance.htm

Exercises:

Watch the demo of Barton's Pendulum and explain it using the theory of resonance.

Watch the video of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse.

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Tacoma Bridge

What happened? How is this avoided in modern civil engineering?

Homer and Bowen Jones pp582-587

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