King Saud University

College of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering Department
Final Examination – ME 462 Mechanical Vibrations

Problem 1

A uniform rigid bar of mass m carries a point mass M at its right end. The bar is supported by
two springs, as shown in the Figure. Use Lagrange’s equations to derive the differential
equations for the translation and rotation of the mass center. Assume small motions.

Problem 2

Use modal analysis, determine the response of the system with equations of motion

m 0    2k  k  F (t )
 0 m x (t )   k  x (t )   
   2k   0 

With zero initial conditions. The forcing function, F (t ) , is in the form of a rectangular pulse
of magnitude F0 and duration t 0 .
Problem 3

A vibration absorber is used to some passenger cars to reduce the vibration of exhaust pipe as
shown in Fig.1. Suppose that the forcing frequency is 5 Hz. If one uses an absorber mass
m2=0.3 kg, what must be the value of the stiffness in N/m of the cantilever beam that
attaches m2 to the exhaust pipe?

Absorber
Exhaust Pipe
Cantilever beam

m2

Fig.1

Problem 4

A washing machine of mass 50 kg operates at 1200 rpm. Find the maximum stiffness of an
isolator that provides 70 percent isolation. Assume that the damping ratio of the isolator is 5
percent.

Problem 5

An aluminum shaft of diameter 0.020 m and length 0.8 m is supported at the two ends in
bearings. It carries a turbine disc, of mass 15 kg and eccentricity 0.004 m, at the middle and
operates at 5000 rpm. The damping in the system is equivalent to viscous damping with
  0.01 . Determine the whirl amplitude of the disc, the bearing reactions, and the maximum
bending stress induced in the shaft at operating speed. Eal  70 GPa.
Problem 6

Consider the experimentally determined compliance transfer function plotted in the Figure
shown. Calculate the number of degrees of freedom, natural frequencies, and modal damping
ratios.
Problem 7

A gear box, shown in Figure 2, is observed to have a high level of vibration. Engineer Omar
prepared a setup to measure the vibration level using a data acquisition system which
consists of an accelerometer , charge amplifier unit , A/D converter, and a laptop computer.
The acquired analog signal, from the accelerometer, is digitized using the converter. The
spectrum of the time signal, at the running speed N1 = 3600 rpm, is obtained using FFT
algorithm as shown in Figure 3 . Comment on the probable cause of vibration in the gearbox.

Specifications of Gears

Number of teeth of gear G1 = 20

Number of teeth of gear G2 = 35

Bearings ( A, B, C)
d = 16 mm , D = 112 mm , contact angle = 0 , n = 10 rollers ,

G1
N1 Gear box
Input
shaft

A
B C
Output
shaft

G2
Fig.2
 Vibration level

1200 HZ

257.14 HZ

1140 HZ 1260 HZ
222.84 HZ 291.44 HZ

Frequency

Fig. 3

==============================================================================================

d  T  T
 R V
   Q (j n ) , j  1, 2,..., n
dt  q j  q
 j q j q j

 q (0)  1 t
qi (t )  qi (0) cos  i t   i  sin  i t 
 i  i  0
Qi ( ) sin  i (t   )d , i  1, 2,..., n

1
 sin  n (t   )d 
n
[cos  n (t   )]

1/ 2
 1  (2 r ) 2 
Tr   2 
[1  r ]  (2 r ) 
2 2

ar 2
A
[1  r 2 ]2  (2 r ) 2

1/ 2
 1  (2 r ) 2 
R  a 2 
[1  r ]  (2 r ) 
2 2

48 EI  d4
k , I 
L3 64
Bearing frequencies