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Determining the damping coefficient of a simple pendulum oscillating in air

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 Frontline
Phys. Educ. 52 (2017) 033007 (5pp) iopscience.org/ped

Determining the damping

coefficient of a simple pendulum
oscillating in air
Luis A Ladino and Hermilda S Rondón
Departmento de Ciencias Naturales, Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería, Bogotá, Colombia

E-mail: luis.ladino@escuelaing.edu.co and susana.rondon@escuelaing.edu.co

Abstract
A systematic method to measure the damping coefficient of a simple pendulum
carrying out small oscillations using the resonance phenomena is considered.
The method only requires a standard function generator, a simple pendulum
and a loudspeaker. The results obtained from this experiment show that the
damping coefficient is very small, which is confirmed by the observed beats.

1. Introduction damping coefficient and x denotes the horizontal

Traditionally, in introductory physics lab position of the mass.
courses, when students study simple harmonic By applying Newton’s second law of motion
motion using a simple pendulum for small oscil- to the pendulum bob in the x direction we get
lations, the first assumption that is usually made dx d2x
is that the damping force on the pendulum bob is −T sin θ − b
(1) =m 2
dt dt
so small that it can be neglected. But a question
that rises is: how small is this force that it can be For small oscilations, cos θ ≈ 1, and therefore
x−η
neglected? It is the intent of this paper to give T ≈ mg. Also please notice that sin θ = L .
an answer to this interesting and often ignored Taking these considerations into account, the equa-
question. tion (1) becomes

d2x dx
2.  Description of the method (2)
2
+ 2λ + ω 2x = ω 2η0 cos γt
dt dt
Let us consider the schematic diagram in figure 1,
which consists of a simple pendulum of mass m b
hanging from a string of length L, whose top end where we have defined ω = g and λ = 2m . The
L
is attached to point p and is forced to vibrate har- steady state solution [1–3] to equation (2) is:
monically around point o with amplitude η0 and x (t ) = A(γ ) cos(ωt − φ )
(3)
angular frequency γ, i.e. its displacement at time
t is η (t ) = η0 cos γt. The forces acting on the pen- where the amplitude A and phase φ are respec-
dulum bob are shown in figure  2. The force of tively given by
gravity mg, the tension T and the damping force
ω 2η0
f that is usually assumed to be proportional to the A(γ ) =
(4)
dx
bob’s speed, i.e. f = −bv = b dt , where b is the (ω 2 − γ 2 )2 + (2λγ )2

1361-6552/17/033007+5$33.00 1 © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd

L A Ladino and H S Rondón
Moreover, equation (6) can be rewritten as
o
p
g 1 b2
f r2 = ( 2 ) − 2 2
(7)
4π L 8π m
1
Thus, f r2 against L
is a straight line with gradient
g b2
L n = 4π 2 and intercept b1 = − 8π 2m2 ; consequently,
the value of the gravitational acceleration g and
m the damping coefficient b can be determined if the
values of n and b1 are known
g = 4π 2n
(8)
Figure 1.  Simple pendulum whose suspension point p
vibrates harmonically around fixed point o with angular
frequency γ and amplitude η0. b = 2πm 2| b1|
(9)
Finally, given that the friction upon the pendulum
dx
bob was assumed to take the form f = −b dt , the
o p maximum value of this force is
-h0 +h0 fm = ∣ bvm∣
(10)
h dx
where vm is the maximum of dt
.
q
T
3.  Experimental apparatus
f
A schematic diagram and photograph of the
x experimental apparatus are depicted in figure 3. A
mg 20 V p–p sinusoidal signal coming from a RIGOL
DG1022, 200 MHz, 100 Ma s−1 function genera-
Figure 2.  Forces acting on the pendulum bob. tor is applied to a 8Ω, 120 W R.M.S, 240 W MAX
modified speaker. Figure  4 shows a diagram of
the modified speaker. The original diaphragm was
and
replaced for a more flexible one with a few trian-
2λγ gular apertures, and a light aluminum pin passing
tan φ = 2
(5)
ω − γ2 tightly through a washer was glued to the dia-
phragm. The low frequency voltage signal feeds
Not only A but also φ depend on the the loudspeaker coil causing the pin and conse-
value of γ. It can be proven that when quently the pendulum to oscillate.
g b2
γ= ω 2 − 2λ2 = L
− 2m2
, the amplitude A
gets the maximum value. The frequency value, in 4.  Results and discussion
hertz, for which this occurs is Figure 5 shows a typical plot of the resonance
frequency squared for the pendulum as a function
γ 1 g b2
fr =
(6) = − of the reciprocal of its length. The way the mea-
2π 2π L 2m2 surements were made is as follows: the function
and is called the resonant frequency. Furthermore, generator was set to produce a 20 V p–p, almost
from equation (6) it is clear that the smaller the 0 Hz sine wave but with its output switched off.
value of the damping coefficient, the higher the For each pendulum length the pendulum bob was
value of the resonant frequency. In particular, initially at rest. Then, the function generator out-
when the damping coefficient is very small, then put was turned on and the frequency was increased
1 L gradually until the pendulum oscillation amplitude
fr ≈ 2π , that corresponds to the natural fre-
g got a maximum value. To measure this amplitude,
quency of the system. it sufficed to put a graduate ruler behind the plane

May 2017 2 Phys. Educ. 52 (2017) 033007

 Determining the damping coefficient of a simple pendulum oscillating in air

Speaker
Speaker

Function
Pendulum generator
Function generator
Mod Store/
Recall

1.50 mHz
Sweep Utility

Burst Help

View 7 8 9
Output

4 5 6

1 2 3
Output

0 . +/-

String Light aluminum bar

Support rod
Bob

Figure 3.  Experimental apparatus.

Light aluminum pin

Triangular
Diaphragm aperture New diaphragm
Dust cup
Dust cup
Plastic washer
Voice coil
Voice coil

+
Suspension +
Suspension
–
Basket Magnet –
Spider Basket Magnet
Spider

Figure 4.  Left: original loudspeaker and right: modified loudspeaker.

of oscillation of the pendulum and look closely for

2.5
the greatest value of its horizontal displacement.
The dotted line is a linear fit obtained using the 2
least-squares method with an Excel worksheet.
The slope n of the fitting curve is 0.2461 Hz 2 ⋅ 1.5
f r2(Hz2)

m and the intercept value b1  =  −0.0548 Hz2. 1 y = 0.2461x – 0.0548

Plugging these values into equations  (8) and R2 = 0.9985
0.5
(9) we get g = 9.74 m s−2 and b = 1.9 × 10−4
kg s−1, respectively. The pendulum mass used was 0
2.62 g. Notice that our exper­imental data support 0 2 4 6 8 10
the model reasonably well, as the square of the 1 (m–1)
L
Pearson correlation coefficient is 0.998.
During the experiment, for each pendulum
1
length the oscillation amplitude x changed in Figure 5.  Plot of f r2 versus L .

May 2017 3 Phys. Educ. 52 (2017) 033007

L A Ladino and H S Rondón
x(mm)
Figure 6.  Oscillation amplitude variations as a function of time for a pendulum length L equal 20 cm and a driving
frequency equal 1078 mHz.
time. A typical plot of these time variations is
shown in figure 6, which was measured using the
free video analysis and modeling tool Tracker
[4] for windows. These surprising beats are also
observed in mass-spring systems [5]. Using the
Tracker slope option, it was found from the
position–time graph that the maximum bob
speed was 3 × 10 2 mm s−1 = 0.3 m s−1. This speed
corresponds to the lowest bob posi-
tion. Thus, from equation  (11), the maxi-
mum friction force on the pendulum bob is
fm = bvm = 1.9 × 10−4 kg s−1 × 0.3 m s−1 ≈ 6 ×
10−5 N. This force is 500 times smaller than
the pendulum bob weight, mg = 2.62 × 10−3
×9.8 m s−2 ≈ 3 × 10−2 N.
Now to give an idea of the influence of this
force on the pendulum bob motion, let us sup-
pose that our pendulum is oscillating freely. Its
initial total energy is just gravitational poten-
tial energy, mgh, where h  =  3 cm is the initial
height of the pendulum bob measured respect
to its lowest position. The rate P at which this
pendulum looses energy is given by P  =  −bv2
[6], where v is the bob speed. This speed is of
course not constant, but let us assume that it is
v
and its value is 2m , which is reasonable enough.
Thus, |P |= ∆E = bv 2 = 1.9 × 10−4 kg s−1 ×
∆t
(0.15 m s−1) 2= 4.3 × 10−6 W. The time it takes
for the bob to stop is given by ∆t = ∆Et =
P From the plot shown in figure 6, the beats period
mgh 2.62 × 10−3 kg ⋅ 9.8 m s−2 ⋅ 3 × 10−2 m
P
= ≈ 179 s ≈ 3
4.3 × 10−6 W
min. This time should be smaller than the real one
due to our assumption, but the order of magnitude
is in good agreement with the real one that was
approximately 2 min.
May 2017
time(s)
Based on this quantitative result, we can now
undoubtedly claim that the friction force is small
compared to the other forces acting upon the
driven pendulum. However, it has a strong influ-
ence on the pendulum bob motion.
Finally, the beats can be accounted for
by considering the general solution of equa-
tion  (2) with λ ≈ 0 and γ ≠ ω. In this case, the
steady solution [7] is given by x (t ) = A sin
η ω2
(ωt + φ ) + (ω 2 0− γ 2) sin γt, where the values for
A and φ are determined by the initial conditions,
i.e. x(t  =  0)  =  x0 and v(t  =  0)  =  v0. Thus, taking
x(0)  =  0 and v(0)  =  0 the solution for x becomes
ηω
x (t ) = 2 0 2 (ω sin γt + γ sin ωt )
(11)
(ω − γ )
Notice that when we are close to the resonance
frequency γ ≈ ω the equation (11) can be written
as
η ω2
x (t )  2 0 2 (sin γt + sin ωt )
(12)
(ω − γ )
The expression in parenthesis corresponds
to the sum of two sinusoidal signals of equal
ampl­itude and very close frequencies; conse-
quently, the beat phenomena emerges and its
frequency is given by
1
fbeat =
(13) | γ − ω|
2π
is 27.5 s on one hand, and on the other one, from
equation  (13) the beats period Tbeats = 1/fbeats is
27.7 s. This last period comes as a result of tak-
ing ω = g with L  =  20 cm. So, our results are
L
in reasonably good agreement with the theory.
4 Phys. Educ. 52 (2017) 033007
 Determining the damping coefficient of a simple pendulum oscillating in air
5. Conclusions
We have presented a systematic method to deter-
mine the value of the damping coefficient for a
simple pendulum oscillating in air and estimated
the order of magnitude of the maximum force
due to friction on the pendulum bob. The value of
this force turned out to be very small compared
to the other forces acting upon the driven pendu-
lum. However, this force plays an important role
in the dynamic of the pendulum. Furthermore,
the value of the local acceleration of gravity was
found and the period of the beats was computed;
the obtained values are in reasonably good agree-
ment with the theory. Finally, now our students
have knowledge of the order of magnitude of
the damping force appearing in an oscillating
pendulum.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank to the lab assistants
Yuri Angel, Juan C González, and Francisco A
Díaz for their help in the development of this
experiment.
Received 21 February 2017, in final form 27 February 2017
Accepted for publication 2 March 2017
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6552/aa6431
References
[1] Kleppner D and Kolenkow R 1973 An
Introduction to Mechanics (New York:
McGraw Hill)
May 2017
[2] Allum J and Talbot C 2014 Physics for the IB
Diploma (London: Hodder Education)
[3] Homer D and Bowen-Jones M 2014 Physics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press)
[4] Brown D 2017 Tracker video analysis and
modeling tool. Version 4.9 (http://physlets.org/
tracker/)
[5] Gaffney C A and Kagan D 2002 Beats in an
oscillator near resonance The Physics Teacher
40 405
[6] Tipler P and Mosca G 2007 Physics for Scientists
and Engineers 7th edn (New York: W.H.
Freeman)
[7] Lee S 2014 An Introduction to Mathematics for
Engineers (London: Hodder Education)
Luis A Ladino holds a BSc in physics
from the Universidad Nacional,
Colombia and an MSc and PhD in
physics from the University of Kentucky
in the US. He is a full-time physics
instructor at the Escuela Colombiana
de Ingeniería, Julio Garavito, Bogotá,
Colombia. His primary physics interests are low-dimensional
materials for thermoelectric applications, and the automatization
of experiments using microcontrollers, PCs and tablets. He is
also engaged in developing resources for teaching physics.
Hermilda S Rondón holds a BSc in
mathematics and physics from the
Universidad del Tolima, Colombia,
an MSc in statistics from Universidad
Nacional, Colombia, and an MSc
in technology in education from the
Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey,
México. Since 2005, she has been
working at the Departamento de Matematicas of the Escuela
Colombiana de Ingeniería, Julio Garavito, Bogotá, Colombia,
and is involved in teaching probability and statistics for
engineers. She is also engaged in developing resources for
teaching physics.
5 Phys. Educ. 52 (2017) 033007