ME 124 Spring 2003 Experiment #2: Beam Vibrations

ME124 Mechanical Engineering Laboratory III

Experiment #2: Linear and Nonlinear Flexural Vibrations of a Beam

Purpose
The purpose of this exercise is to determine the natural
frequency and damping ratio of cantilever beam
undergoing small amplitude flexural vibrations.
Procedure
In this experiment you will be using the same beam
specimen which you worked with in the preceding
experiment involving static deflections.
Preliminary Setup
Obtain the beam your beam specimen and verify/record its dimensions.

Use a balance to determine the mass of your specimen, and from this determine its average
density ().

Securely clamp one end of your beam to the table to create a fixed boundary condition (i.e., zero
displacement, zero slope); the other end of the beam should be free.

Measure the free beam length, L. This is actually very important! Decide whether the free beam
length should extend just to the base of the clamp or midway under the clamp; give it some
thought as to how to decide this.

Set up the Measurements Group/Vishay P-3500 portable strain conditioner to record the strain
output from your strain gage (as in the previous experiment).
Vibration Analysis - Oscilloscope*
Connect the "output" of the portable strain gage conditioner to an input channel on the digital
oscilloscope provided. Note that this signal is real-time strain data being output from the internal
Wheatsone bridge, which is different from the smoothed/time-averaged output which is
ultimately displayed on the LCD panel. This will enable you to visualize the dynamic strain on
the upper surface of the vibrating beam.

Apply a quick "plucking force" to the end of the beam to initiate an oscillation in the beam.
Make sure that the initial displacement of the end is not too large (i.e., <5 mm); if the amplitude
of the vibration is too large, the assumption of a linear vibration and the subsequent analysis
becomes invalid.

On the oscilloscope, adjust the gain and time base settings to obtain a "reasonable" signal

* The TA will help you with the necessary oscilloscope settings described below.


ME 124 Spring 2003 Experiment #2: Beam Vibrations
2
amplitude and number of oscillations while viewing a continuously triggered signal (auto-trigger
mode). When you are satisfied with the appearance of your signal, adjust the trigger level to
acquire a single trace.


Photograph of a (nonlinear) strain vibration as it appears on the oscilloscope screen

Frequency Measurement: Use the t oscilloscope option to measure the time interval between
adjacent peaks in the signal. Note that the readout at the bottom of the oscilloscope screen
displays both the time interval and the associated frequency. This value will be the apparent
natural frequency in Hz. Record this value as well as its uncertainty. Repeat this measurement
for several pairs of peaks to see how consistent this value is; you may wish to make a number of
these measurements to later perform simple statistics (e.g., average and standard deviation).

Damping Measurement: Use the V oscilloscope option to measure the ratio of signal amplitude
between two peaks separated by N cycles. The larger you choose N the better; probably 10-20 is
adequate. You will use this information later to determine the damping ratio for the beam.

You will now repeat the vibration analysis, but this time introduce a stronger initial "pluck" such
that the amplitude of the end vibration is around 10 mm. The purpose here is to generate a
nonlinear vibration and compare the results with the linear vibrations.
Vibration Analysis - Computer-Based Data Acquisition
You will now repeat the same experiment and procedures as for the oscilloscope, but this time
you will send the signal to a computer-based data acquisition system (via LabView). The TA(s)
will assist you in using the software to acquire your signal.

Using the LabView package, acquire time records of the dynamic strain over a reasonably large
number of cycles. You will also adjust the data acquisition rate on the software (use your
knowledge from the oscilloscope experiments as a starting point to estimate what sampling rate
you need). Choose a rate which gives high resolution of the signal; however, choosing a rate
which is unnecessarily high will not improve your results and will just make for larger data files.

Acquire data records for both small and large amplitude vibrations and save these records to a
file. This raw data will be analyzed later to determine frequency and damping information.


ME 124 Spring 2003 Experiment #2: Beam Vibrations
3
Vibration Analysis - Beam Clamped at Both Ends
Repeat the entire experiment, but this time clamp your beam at both ends. Be sure to record the
"new" beam length in this case. This is a different set of boundary conditions for the beam
which significantly changes the natural frequency. Moreover, because the theoretical/ideal
clamped boundary condition is quite difficult to achieve experimentally, it is likely you will see
a greater discrepancy with theory.
Report Guidelines
Using principles of dimensional analysis (e.g., the Buckingham Pi Theorem) show that if one
assumes the natural frequency of the beam is dependent only on the parameters L, A, , E and I,
that is

( , , , , ) = f L A I E ,
then it must have the form

4
Constant
EI
AL

= .

The precise value of the multiplicative constant must be determined either through an exact (or
approximate) analytical solution to the beam vibration problem, or through experiment. You
should place this derivation in as an opening subsection in the Results section of your report.
Cantilever Beam Analysis
According to the linear theory of flexural beam vibrations, the natural frequencies f
res
for the
cantilever beam are given by


4
4
1
2
n
res
EI
f =
A
L

,

where
n
is a constant, L is the free length of beam, E is the elastic modulus of beam, I is the
area moment of inertia of beam, is the beam density, and A is beam cross-sectional area. For
the cantilever beam, the constant
n
is the n-th solution to the transcendental equation


1
cos cosh 1=0 with 1.875
n n
+ (numerically).

It can be shown that there are an infinite number of increasingly larger solutions to this
equation. The special case of n=1 (i.e., the smallest solution) yields the fundamental
frequency; subsequent solutions generate the higher harmonics.

Perform simple statistics (average, standard deviation) on your FFT data for the natural
frequency of the beam for linear and nonlinear vibrations. How much of a spread is there in your
data?

Using the digitized records of the strain vibration, compute the Fourier transform (FFT) of the


ME 124 Spring 2003 Experiment #2: Beam Vibrations
4
data using a software package of your choice (Matlab is excellent, but Excel also has this
feature). From the FFTs determine the fundamental frequency and any harmonics present in the
data. If appropriate, compare their relative magnitudes of the harmonics. How does your
prediction of the natural frequency compare with that obtained directly from the oscilloscope?

Using again the digitized records, compute the magnitude of the damping ratio by using the
logarithmic decrement method presented in class,

1
2
2 1
1
ln
1
1
4 ln
1
n
n
x
n x
x
n x

| |
|

\ .
=
(
| |
+ (
|

( \ .



where x
1
and x
n
are the locations of the signal peaks separated by n oscillation cycles.

Accounting for damping effects, we realize that the frequency measured in this experiment is
actually a damped natural frequency f
damped
. Using the value determined for the damping ratio ,
re-calculate the undamped natural frequency f
res
(both from the oscilloscope and the
computerized data acquisition) via

damped
res
2
1
f
f

where f
damped
is the experimentally measured frequency.

Compare and comment on the experimental values of the undamped natural frequency and their
relationship to the theoretical value from linear theory. How good is the agreement? Is there a
significant difference between the linear and nonlinear vibrations?

Analysis of Beam for Two Fixed Ends
Repeat the same analysis as above for the case of the vibrating beam with two fixed ends.
For these boundary conditions, the theoretical natural frequency is given by

4
res
4
1
2
n
EI
= f
A
L

where is the (first) solution to


1
cos cosh 1=0 with 4.730
n n