Simple Harmonic Motion: Getting mathematical

Prior Knowledge Concepts Covered Making the Links.

Maths! Oscillations Displacement, velocity,

Hooke’s law SHM acceleration.
F=ma Link to Hooke’s law, F=ma

Targets:
• Describe how displacement, velocity and acceleration vary with time
• Describe the phase difference between displacement and velocity, and displacement and
acceleration.

Directed Study:
• SHM pre reading
Key terms:
Key terms:
Frequency Distance from equilibrium position

Displacement Time for one complete cycle of oscillation

Angular frequency Number of cycles per second

Amplitude Frequency expressed in radians. One

revolution is equal to 2π radians

Time period Maximum displacement

New key terms- Rotational quantities
Phase difference

You have met phase difference before when we learnt about

waves. Phase difference is also very important in SHM as two
oscillators can be moving in or out of phase with each other.
4
New key terms- Rotational quantities

T= Time period of the oscillations

5
New key terms- Rotational quantities
Angular frequency

You will come across other rotational quantities such as angular

displacement, velocity and acceleration when you learn about circular
motion, however for SHM we will only be dealing with angular 6
frequency.
New key terms- Rotational quantities

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Restoring force
• What is the resultant force acting on the pendulum in equilibrium?
Zero
• If I displace it to the right what direction will it start to move in?
Left
• What causes this acceleration?
A resultant force to the left

Key points:
An object is undergoing SHM if….
• Displacement to the right gives…. acceleration is always in the opposite direction to
• A force to the left and….. the displacement

• An acceleration to the left!

Restoring force
• This force is called….
The restoring force

• What happens to the restoring force as displacement is increased?

Therefore,
Restoring force
As the displacement is always directed in the opposite direction to the
force i.e. towards the equilibrium position, we can say,

N.B as we are using vector quantities direction is important and therefore must be
indicated with a positive or negative sign. The mid- point is zero and any quantity to
the right (or up) is positive, left (down) is negative.
Graphical representations of SHM
• What does a displacement time graph look like for one cycle of
oscillation for the pendulum?
Some maths ...
• Displacement forms a cosine curve

• Definition of “cosine curve” is:

Graphical representations of SHM
What do you think the velocity- time graph looks like for a simple
pendulum?
Graphical representations of SHM
The velocity of an oscillator at any point can be found by calculating the
gradient of the displacement time graph.

Displacement:

To find the gradient of a line you differentiate the equation of the line.

Velocity:
Graphical representations of SHM
What do you think the acceleration- time graph looks like for a simple
pendulum?
Graphical representations of SHM
The acceleration of an oscillator at any point can be found by
calculating the gradient of the velocity time graph.

Displacement:
Velocity:

Acceleration:
Graphical representations of SHM
Graphical representations of SHM
Acceleration:

We previously said that,

We can now see that our maximum acceleration is:

where ω= 2πf

What is the equation for the restoring force?

Practise!
• Complete the summary questions on pg. 287 of your textbook
• If you have time go onto the questions on pg. 289