Page 1 of 2 N.

Hoffman

Structural Vibrations
N. Hoffman
January 2012


1.
a. Any structure with stiffness and mass will have a natural frequency, its stiffness matrix
will have all non-zero diagonal values. Support degrees of freedom will have zero
displacement values, free dofs (lumped mass points) will have no constraint and are free
to oscillate. Thus, expansion of the determinate of the free vibration equations of motion
(0=F=ma+kx) for a lumped mass system will yield eigenvalues corresponding to the
natural frequencies of vibration.

b. Dymamic Magnification Factor is the ratio of non-transient (steady) dynamic amplitude to
static displacement. With respect to typical building structures which have small
damping, the closer a systems excitation frequency is to its natural frequency, the larger
the Dymamic Magnification, which in turn causes undesirable deflection, force, and
stress. The goal of designer is to assure that the natural frequency of the structure is
designed at a point away from an excitation frequency.




2. The principal of direct integration can be used for solving the differential equation of motion for
systems, particularly non-linear (damped) systems and/or those with complicated excitation force
functions. It is essentially a numeric procedure applied by marching along the temporal axis of
the exciting force function using a constant time increment. The conditions of displacement,
velocity, and acceleration are calculated anew along each integration time step, the time is
incremented, and the calculations repeated. The smaller the time increment, the more precise
the results, but a good starting point for structural applications is to use a time increment equal to
about 1/10 the natural period of the structure.

Page 2 of 2 N. Hoffman



3.
a) Log decrement = o = ln(y
0
/y
n
) / n = ln(2/1)/4cycles = 0.173 (small)
Damping ratio = o/2t = 0.173 / (2* t) = 0.0276 (small value, approx. ok)
b) Damped period = T
d
= 4 cycles/2 sec = 2 sec
Undamped Period = T = 1/en = T
d
(1-
2
)^
(1/2)
= 2*(1-0.0276^2)^.5) = 1.99 sec
c) Effective stiffness = k
eff
=F/x = 16.4kip/2in = 8.2 k/in
d) Effective weight = w
eff
=k
eff
/e
n
2
= (8.2 k/in*0.386)/(1/1.99)
2
= 12.53 kip
e) Damping coefficient = C = C
cr
= 2(k
eff
m
eff
)
^(1/2)
= 2*0.0276*(8.2*0.386*12.53)
(1/2)
=
C= 0.0276 *12.53 = 0.348
f) Cycles, n, to decrease amplitude from 2 to 0.2 => n = ln(y
0
/y
n
)/ o =
n = ln(2/0.2)/0.173 = 13.3 cycles