3.

0 – HARMONICALLY EXCITED VIBRATION

A mechanical or structural system is said to undergo forced vibration whenever external
energy is supplied to the system during vibration. External energy can be supplied through
either an applied force or an imposed displacement excitation. The applied force or
displacement excitation may be harmonic, nonharmonic but periodic, nonperiodic, or random in
nature. The response of a system to a harmonic excitation is called harmonic response.
The nonperiodic excitation may have a long or short duration. The response of a dynamic system
to suddenly applied nonperiodic excitations is called transient response.

Under a harmonic excitation, the response of the system will also be harmonic. If the
frequency of excitation coincides with the natural frequency of the system, the response will be
very large. This condition, known as resonance, is to be avoided to prevent failure of the system.
The vibration produced by an unbalanced rotating machine, the oscillations of a tall chimney due
to vortex shedding in a steady wind, and the vertical motion of an automobile on a sinusoidal road
surface are examples of harmonically excited vibration. The applications of transfer-function,
Laplace transform, and frequency-function approaches in the solution of harmonically excited
systems.

3.1 – EQUATION OF MOTION

If a force F(t) acts on a viscously damped spring-mass system, the equation of motion can
be obtained using Newton s second law:

Since this equation is nonhomogeneous, its general solution x(t) is given by the sum of the
homogeneous solution, xh(t), and the particular solution, xp(t) will be,
 The homogeneous solution, which is the solution of the homogeneous equation represents
the free vibration of the system. This free vibration dies out with time under each of the three
possible conditions of damping (underdamping, critical damping, and overdamping) and under all
possible initial conditions.

3.2 – RESPONSE OF AN UNDAMPED SYSTEM

We consider an undamped system subjected to a harmonic force, for the sake of
simplicity. If a force acts on the mass m of an undamped system, the equation of motion:

The homogeneous solution of this equation is given by

where X is an constant that denotes the maximum amplitude of Xp (t). By substituting

the equations above and solving for X, we obtain

wherein it denotes the deflection of the mass under a force F and is sometimes called static
deflection because F is a constant (static) force. Thus the total solution becomes;
 The complete motion can be expressed as the sum of two cosine curves of different
frequencies. If the forcing frequency is smaller than the natural frequency, then the total response
is ;

While, if the forcing frequency is greater than the natural frequency, then the total response
is ;

3.3 – RESPONSE OF A DAMPED SYSTEM

If the forcing function is given by F(t) = Fcos(t), the equation of motion becomes;

The particular solution is also expected to be harmonic; we assume it in the form;

Wherein it denotes the amplitude and phase angle of the response, respectively. By
substituting the equations above, we arrive at;
 Equate the coefficients of cos and sin on both sides of the resulting equation, we obtain;

The complete solution is given by x(t) = xh(t) + xp(t) , wherein the damped system we
have is;