Module: 5

Lecture: 1
Units
Force
N (kg m / s2)
Displacement
x (m)
x (m / s2)
Acceleration
Mass
m (kg)
Damping coefficient
C (N-s / m)
Velocity
x (m / s)
Linear Stiffness
k (N / m kg-m / s2 / m kg /s2)
Angular Velocity
1/s
Moment of Force
N-m
Acceleration due to gravity, g = 9.81 m / s2

displacement when force F pulls the spring

f (flexibility)

k
m

1
k

natural frequency of a single degree freedom system

Characteristic of Harmonic Motion:

x A sin t
x A cos t

A sin ( t 2 )

x 2 A sin t
2 A sin ( t )

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x
x

x
Response diagram of displacement (x), velocity ( ) and acceleration ( )
Forced Vibration of a Single Degree of Freedom System

m
F (t ) excitation force

Excitation force becomes periodic (reciprocating engine).

Harmonic or periodic forces or rotating or reciprocating parts is exciting in nature.
Exciting force can also be shock / transient force due to landing of a/c, firing of missile,
ejecting of external stores, launch of space vehicle etc.
Sustained non-periodic random aerodynamic forces experienced by an a/c due to
turbulence of the atmosphere.

Response of First - Order Systems to Harmonic Excitation Frequency Response

The differential equation for a first order system in the form of a damper spring system is
shown below
cx t k x t F t
(1)
wherec and k are damping coefficient and stiffness. The homogeneous solution of Eq. (1), can
be obtained by letting F t 0 . In this section we focus our attention on the particular solution,
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which represents the response to external forces. First, we consider the simplest case, namely, the
response to harmonic excitation. To this end, it is convenient to let the force F t have the form

F t kf t kA cos t

(2)

Where is the excitation frequency, sometimes referred to as the driving frequency, Note that
f t and A have units of displacement. The reason for writing the excitation in the form (2) is
so as to permit expressing the response in terms of a non-dimensional ratio, as we shall see
shortly. No dimensional ratios often enhance the usefulness of a solution by extending its
applicability to a large variety of cases. Inserting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1) and dividing through by c ,
we obtain
x t ax t Aa cos t
(3)
Where

k 1

(4)
c
in which is the time constant.
The solution of the homogeneous differential equation, obtained by letting A 0 in Eq. (3) ,
decays exponentially with time, for which reason it is called the transient solution. On the other
hand, the particular solution does not vanish as time and is known as the steady state solution
to the harmonic excitation in question. By virtue of the fact that the system is linear, the principle
of superposition holds, so that the homogeneous solution and the particular solution can be
obtained separately and then combined linearly to obtain the complete solution.
Because the excitation force is harmonic, it can be verified easily that the steady state response
is also harmonic and has same frequency . Moreover, because Eq. (3) involves the function
x t and its first derivative x t , the response must contain not only cos t but also sin t .
Hence, let us assume that the steady state solution of Eq. (3) has the form
x t C1 sin t C2 cos t
(5)
a

Where C1 and C2 are constants yet to be determined. Inserting solution (5) into Eq. (3), we
obtain
C1 cos t C2 sin t a C1 sin t C2 cos t Aa cos t
(6)
Equation (6) can be satisfied only if the coefficients of sin t on the one hand and the
coefficients of cos t on the other hand are the same on both sides of the equation. This, in turn,
requires the satisfaction of the equations
aC1 C2 0
(7)
C1 aC2 Aa
which represent two algebraic equations in the unknowns C1 and C2 . Their solution is

C1

Aa
2
a 2

C2

Aa 2
a2 2

(8)

Introducing Eqs. (8) into Eq. (5), we obtain the steady state solution
Aa
x t 2
(9)
sin t a cos t
a 2

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Solution (9) can be expressed in a more convenient form. To this end, let us introduce the
notation
a

sin
cos
(10)
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
a
a

Then, Eq. (9) can be written as

x t X cos t

(11)

where

12

1 a 2

Is the amplitude and

tan 1

(12)

(13)
a
is the phase angle. Both X and are functions of the excitation frequency .
The response to harmonic excitation can be obtained more conveniently by using complex vector
representation of the excitation and the response. From Sec. 1.6, we recall that
eit cos t i sin t
(14)
Where i 1 so that Eq. (2) can be rewritten as
F t kf t kA cos t Re kAeit
(15a)
Where Re denotes the real part of the function. Similarly in the case of sinusoidal excitation we
can write
F t kf t kA sin t Im kAeit
(15b)
Where Im denotes the imaginary part of the function. Hence, we can rewrite Eq. (3) in the form
x t ax t aAeit
(16)
Then, if the excitation is given by Eq. (15a), we retain the real part of the response and if the
excitation is given by Eq. (15b), we retain the imaginary part of the response.
Concentrating once again on the steady state response, we write the solution of Eq. (16) in the
form
x t X i eit
(17)
Inserting Eq. (17) into Eq. (16)
we obtain
Z i X i eit aAeit

(18)

Where
Z i a i

(19)

Is the impedance function for this first order system. Dividing Eq. (18) through by eit and
solving for X i , we obtain

X i

aA
aA
A

Z i a i 1 i

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(20)

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Where 1 a c k is the time constant. It will prove convenient to introduce the non
dimensional ratio
X i
1
1 i
G i
(21)

A
1 i 1 2
Where G i is known as the frequency response. Inserting Eq. (21) into Eq. (17) , we can
write the harmonic response in the general form
x t AG i eit

(22)

But, the frequency response G i , as any complex function, can be expressed as

G i G i e i

(23)

where G i is the magnitude and is the phase angle of G i . Introducing Eq. (23) into
Eq. (22) , we obtain
x t A G i ei t

(24)

So that if the excitation is in the form of Eq. (15a) , the response is the real part of Eq.(24) , or
(25a)
x t A G i cos t
and if the excitation is in the form of Eq. (15b), the response is the imaginery part of Eq. (24), or
(25b)
x t A G i sin t
From Eqs. (25) it follows that, if the excitation is harmonic with the frequency , the response is
also harmonic and has the same frequency. Hence, in studying the nature of the response,
plotting the response as a function of time will not be very rewarding. Considerably more insight
into the system behaviour can be gained by examining how the system responds as the driving
frequency varies. In particular plots of the magnitude G i and of the phase angle
versus the frequency are very revealing. From complex algebra, if we consider Eq. (21) , then
we can write
12
1
(26)
G i Re2 G i Im 2 G i
1
1 2 2

And we note from Eq. (12) that G i X A . The plot G i versus is shown in

Fig. 1. We observe from Fig. 1 that for small driving frequencies the magnitude G i is close
to 1 and for high frequencies the magnitude approaches 0. Hence, the system permits low
frequency harmonics to go through undistorted, but it attenuates greatly high frequency
harmonics. For this reason a first order system is known as a low-pass filter. To obtain the
phase angle, we recall first that e i cos i sin . Then using Eqs. (21) and (23), we can write
Im G i
1
tan
Re G i

tan 1

(27)

which checks with Eq. (13). The plot versus is shown in Fig. 2. The plots G i versus

and versus are known as frequency response plots.

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Figure 1

Figure 2

The magnitude G i of the frequency response can be interpreted geometrically by observing

from Eq. (24) that the magnitude of the force in the spring is
Fs t k x t kA G i

(28)

Moreover, from Eqs. (15), the magnitude of the harmonic excitation is

(29)
F t kA
Hence, combining Eqs. (28) n and (29) , we can write
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G i

Fs t
F t

(30)

Or, the magnitude of the frequency response is equal to ratio of the magnitude of the spring
force Fs t to the magnitude of the excitation force F t .

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