Modern Methods in The Study of Beam Vibrations

Modern methods in the study
of beam vibrations
A. J. PRETLOVE, Department of Engineering, University of Reading,
PO Box 225, Reading RG6 6AY, UK a.j.pretlove@reading.ac.uk
Received 5th March 1998
Revised 21st January 1999
An assignment is described here in which students undertake both theoretical and experi-
mental analyses of the vibrations of a simple cantilever. A variety of techniques is used, and
all of the results are compared. Students are thereby exposed to several features of practical
value in the analysis of vibration for design purposes. These include the use of computer-
based equipment for experimental data acquisition and analysis, and the value of approxi-
mate prediction techniques.
1. INTRODUCTION
Computer methods of a variety of kinds are now used not only to make design analyses for
structural vibrations but also in their experimental measurement. The assignment described
in this paper is intended to expose students, first, to a wide variety of methods in the analysis
of beam vibrations and secondly, to the use of a computer-based instrumentation system for
measuring such vibrations on a real uniform beam. Students are required to correlate all of
the results not only with known theoretical results but also with experimental values. The
assignment, as a whole, makes a rich practical learning experience which supports the
lecturing and tutorial aspects of a final-year course in structural dynamics.
The beam which is studied in this assignment is a uniform steel cantilever mounted in a
rigid frame and is shown in the photograph, Fig. 1. The beam is of rectangular cross-section,
25.4 mm 3.175 mm, and is 600 mm long. The properties assumed for the steel are:
Youngs modulus = 205.7 GNm
2
Density = 7800 kgm
3
The assignment is in three main stages which can, in practice, be taken in any order. These
stages are:
(A) Theory for a uniform beam
(B) Discrete element computer models
(C) Experimental analysis
The following description will be taken in this order. In this work the emphasis is on the
natural frequencies of vertical bending vibration, though various parts of the work touch on
other modes of vibration and their natural frequencies. Students are told not to concern
themselves with any natural vibrations at frequencies above 500 Hz.
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education Vol 27 No 4
Fig. 1. Photograph showing the experimental apparatus.
2. APPARATUS
The apparatus shown in Fig. 1 has two main measurement systems attached. The first is a
vertical travelling microscope which is used to measure the static deflections of the canti-
lever under load. The electronic deflection measurement system is of a standard type capable
of measuring accurately to t0.01 mm. It is similar to the system commonly found on
electronic vernier callipers. Measurements are made by focusing the microscope at an illumi-
nated feature on the side of the cantilever and then following the movement of this feature
under load.
The second system is for measuring vibration and consists of a miniature B&K acceler-
ometer type 4344 connected to a conditioning amplifier and recording/analysis system, as
shown in the block diagram Fig. 2. Vibration data is digitally recorded on a Datalab DL912
transient recorder. This, in conjunction with a small oscilloscope, displays the recorded
segment of vibration. If it appears to be unsatisfactory, perhaps because of signal limiting or
for some other reason, another section of data is recorded, and this is repeated until the
displayed signal is judged to be satisfactory. At this point the digital data is transferred to a
PC which contains software which will not only store this temporal data but also will
conduct a Fourier transform so as to produce a frequency spectrum of the vibration and
hence to identify the natural frequencies of the beam. The FFT software works on 4096
samples of 8-bit data and produces the frequency spectrum graph on screen in about ten
seconds. The software system is interactive and permits the user to store and print data as
well as to return control to the Transient Recorder or to repeat FFT analysis on a given
record.
3. STAGE A: THEORY FOR A UNIFORM BEAM
This section provides base data which can be used as a benchmark for the other methods
used. In fact, this simple type of beam was chosen so that exact theoretical results could be
Modern methods in the study of beam vibrations 325
Bending vibrations
The governing EulerBernoulli differential equation is:
EI
y
x
m
y
t

4
4
2
2
0
where the symbols have their usual meaning. In particular, EI is the bending stiffness and m
is the mass per unit length. The solution of this equation involves a constant

4 2
m EI
n
which, by rearrangement gives for the natural frequencies
n
(in rads)

n n
l EI ml ( )
2 4
For the cantilever the first five values of ( )
n
l
2
are
( ) .
( ) .
( ) .
( ) .
( ) .
1
2
2
2
3
2
4
2
5
2
3 5160
22 035
61 697
120 903
199 86
l
l
l
l
l
326 A. J. Pretlove
Fig. 2. Block diagram of the measurement system used.
obtained for this purpose. Students are encouraged to make this a short piece of their work
by using standard results from a textbook (for example, reference [1]). Typically, the calcu-
lations which students will go through are as follows.
Vertical bending
From the given properties of the beam when it is vibrating in bending in the easy direction
(vertical motion) we have:
EI
m
13 9354
0 62903
2
.
.
Nm
kg m
These lead to the first five values of
n
from the results above which, when converted to
hertz, are:
f
f
f
f
f
V
V
V
V
V
1
2
3
4
5
7 32
45 9
128 4
251 6
415 9
.
.
.
.
.
Hz
Hz
Hz
Hz
Hz
Torsional vibrations
Reference [2] provides appropriate formulae (in Table 36, item 8b and in Table 20, item 4)
for the fundamental torsional natural frequency as follows:
f
K GK
Jl
n
n
2
where for n = 1, K
1
= 1.57, and also
Torsional stiffness K
bd d
b
d
b

_
,
1
]
1
1
3 4
4
16
16
3
3 36 1
12
.
Total mass moment of inertia about the polar axis J ml
b d
_
,
2 2
12
l = beam length = 600 mm
G = shear modulus = 73.5 GNm
2
for steel
(Reference [2], Table 20; Item 4.)
Substitution of the appropriate numbers into these equations leads to a value of 304.4 Hz
for the torsional natural frequency.
Horizontal (sideways) bending
The ratio of breadth to depth for the cross-section of the beam used is 8:1. As a result the
value of I for horizontal bending is 64 times the value for vertical bending and the corre-
sponding natural frequencies for horizontal bending vibrations are all eight time the values
given above for vertical bending vibrations. Restricting the list to values below 500 Hz
gives:
f
f
H
H
1
2
58 5
366 8
.
.
Hz
Hz
Finite element analysis
This theory is, of course, not exact. It uses a method with which final-year students are likely
to be familiar but, in practice, there is not time for students to do this work as part of this
assignment. Instead, for an additional comparison, the results are provided for a model which
is composed of 3000 brick elements; 100 along the length, 10 across the width and 3 through
the depth of the beam. The exact theoretical results are shown with the finite element results
and others in Table 1 later in this paper.
4. STAGE B: DISCRETE ELEMENT COMPUTER MODELS
In this section the student considers the beam notionally split into either three or five equal
elements, each element being of equal mass, as shown in Fig. 3, so that the mass matrix will
have equal element values on its diagonal. The intent here is to produce a simple model with
a finite number of degrees of freedom (elements) for which the stiffness and mass properties
(with coupling) can be easily determined. This is not quite the same as a conventional finite
element analysis and is obviously a much cruder process. However, it has the advantage of
being intuitively satisfactory at a fairly simple level and can be expected to produce better
results for larger numbers of elements; hence the comparison between three elements and
five elements. The main part of this aspect of the work is to form a flexibility matrix (inverse
of a stiffness matrix) for the beam so that, for vibration purposes it can be treated either as a
three-degree-of-freedom system or as a five-degree-of-freedom system. The flexibility matri-
ces can be found both by measurement and by using standard static load bending software on
the computer. This stage has several sections and is conducted in the following order, in
which some typical results have been included.
Fig. 3. Three- and five-element models for the cantilever.
328 A. J. Pretlove
Three-degree-of-freedom model
The first task for the student is to measure, as accurately as possible, the set of influence
coefficients which will form the flexibility matrix F for the three points at the centre of each
element. This is done by placing an appropriate weight, either 0.1 kg (1 N), 0.2 kg (2 N) or
0.5 kg (5 N) and measuring the corresponding deflections. Considerable care is needed to get
satisfactory values to the nearest 0.01 mm. In particular it is necessary to minimize the effect
of mechanical hysteresis in the measuring system. The need for symmetry of the resulting
(3 3) flexibility matrix, as a result of the reciprocal theorem, provides a useful check on the
quality of the measurements. Large and obvious asymmetries are check measured and,
eventually, mean values are calculated to make the matrix symmetric. All of the influence
coefficients must be normalized against the actual value of the weight causing deflections so
that they represent deflections per unit force. A typical result from a set of student measure-
ments is
F
1
]
1
1
1
0 018 0 065 0 168
0 065 0 675 1 315
0 168 1 315 3 07
. . .
. . .
. . .
mm N
The mass of each element is calculated to be 0.1258 kg and this value appears as each
element on the diagonal of the mass matrix M with zeros everywhere else.
The properties of the system can then be formed into a standard eigenvalue form describ-
ing one of the standard matrix equations of vibration:
SX X S FM
1
2
where
Using the values for F and M shown above the system matrix S can be determined in SI
units as
S
1
]
1
1
1

2 26 8 18 21 1
8 18 84 9 165
21 1 165 386
10
6 2
. . .
. .
.
s
The power method is then used, making several iterations, to find an approximation to the
fundamental mode of vibration and the corresponding natural frequency. A suitable interac-
tive program for doing this is available on the standard laboratory computer. Output is shown
in Fig. 4. This method, in the simple form with which students are familiar, will only find the
fundamental natural frequency, as shown. To find the complete set of three natural frequen-
cies with their mode shapes a more sophisticated eigenvalue program is used. The results are
shown in Fig. 5. This full analysis can be sensitive to even small experimental errors in the
flexibility matrix, particularly for the higher modes of vibration. As a result the process often
leads to an error message. In practice about 30% of students have this difficulty to contend
with. It is however instructive in the problems of ill-conditioning and the need for accuracy
in deflection measurements and leads on to the next stage.
In this final stage an accurate set of influence coefficients is obtained by a theoretical
calculation of all the bending deflections. The accurate flexibility matrix determined in this
ways is:
A comparison of this with the experimental version of F reveals how difficult it can be to
achieve accurate experimental results.
F
1
]
1
1
1
0 0239 0 0957 0 167
0 0957 0 646 1 292
0 167 1 292 2 99
. . .
. . .
. . .
mm N
POWER METHOD
AFTER EACH ITERATION PRESS (M) FOR MORE OR (S) TO STOP
START MODE = 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000
MODE = 0.0547 0.4275 1.0000 FREQUENCY = 8.10 HZ
PROCESS HALTED
Fig. 4. Computer output for the power method used on the 3-DOF discrete element model
using the experimental flexibility matrix.
VIBRATION CALCULATION FOR 3-DOF SYSTEM
FREQUENCIES AND MODES NOT NECESSARILY
IN ASCENDING OR DESCENDING ORDER
NATURAL FREQUENCIES IN HZ:
F3 = 155.95
F2 = 46.09
F1 = 7.42
MODAL MATRIX:
MODE 3 MODE 2 MODE 1
1.0000 .1073 0.0540
0.0702 1.0000 0.4417
.0850 .4359 1.0000
Fig. 5. Computer output for a full set of eigenvalues for the 3-DOF discrete element
model using the experimental flexibility matrix.
The previous calculations using the laboratory computer are now repeated and lead to the
results shown in Fig. 6. However, the nature of this calculation is that while it will give
accurate values for the fundamental natural frequency, the accuracy decreases as we go up
the mode order. This can be checked by the final step in this section of the work, which
follows.
330 A. J. Pretlove
The point of this part of the work, for which the model is illustrated in Fig. 3, is simply to
show that an increase in the number of elements is likely to increase the accuracy (and
Five-degree-of-freedom model
F3 = 162.59
F2 = 50.30
F1 = 7.51
MODAL MATRIX:
MODE 3 MODE 2 MODE 1
1.0000 .3304 0.0590
.2968 1.0000 0.4434
0.0726 .4629 1.0000
model using the theoretical flexibility matrix.
inevitably the modal resolution) for the lower modes of vibration. The point is made verbally
that for any specific mode it is as well to have at least three elements per half wave if good
accuracy of prediction is to be achieved. Therefore, with five elements it is only likely that
accurate prediction will be made for the first two modes of vibration of the bar.
In this work it is unnecessary to go again through the procedure of measuring all the
influence coefficients. Compared with the previous section of work this part is severely
curtailed for students and consists merely of predicting the flexibility matrix using the
standard bending program as follows:
F
1
]
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0 00517 0 0207 0 0362 0 0517 0 0672
0 0207 0 140 0 279 0 419 0 558
0 0362 0 279 0 646 1 03 1 42
0 0517 0 419 1 03 1 77 2 53
0 0672 0 558 1 42 2 53 3 77
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
mm N
This matrix is then used together with the fact that the mass for each element in this case is
0.07548 kg to form a system matrix as in the last section. The same eigenvalue prediction
program is then used to give the set of natural frequencies and corresponding mode shapes as
shown in Fig. 7.
5. STAGE C: EXPERIMENTAL DETERMINATION OF THE NATURAL
VIBRATIONS
In this final section of the work there is an opportunity to use the computer-based data
collection and analysis system described previously. A frequency response spectrum is
obtained by analysing the acceleration signals from the beam. The natural frequencies appear
as peaks in the spectrum. The general arrangement of the equipment is shown in the photo
F5 = 449.18
F4 = 135.19
F3 = 216.22
F2 = 47.20
F1 = 7.38
MODAL MATRIX:
MODE 5 MODE 4 MODE 3 MODE 2 MODE 1
1.0000 0.3082 .3306 0.1333 0.0195
.3166 1.0000 .6852 0.7560 0.1589
0.1071 0.0003 1.0000 1.0000 0.3942
.0107 .9828 .6975 0.4017 0.6852
.0041 0.5084 0.1991 .7921 1.0000
model using the theoretical flexibility matrix.
graph, Fig. 1. A block diagram showing the various electronic components is shown in
Fig. 2.
The accelerometer and amplifier
For most vibration applications, acceleration (using an accelerometer) is easier to measure
than displacement. A piezoelectric accelerometer has been chosen as a sensor here because it
is relatively robust and of small mass. The accelerometer conditioning amplifier is a charge
amplifier and this is followed by a low-pass anti-aliasing filter with a corner frequency of
500 Hz. An accelerometer of low mass is chosen and placed near the cantilever root so that
there is a minimal effect on the dynamic properties of the beam system.
Data acquisition
The transient recorder is connected to the output of the accelerometer system and converts
the incoming signal to digital form at regular intervals, storing values in memory (RAM).
The setting of the sampling rate for data acquisition is critical to ensure that the data
recorded contains sufficient information (according to the Nyquist rule) to allow valid fre-
quency analysis to be conducted. Generally, the sampling rate is either 1 or 2 ms giving
spectrum frequency ranges of either 500 Hz or 250 Hz respectively.
Frequency analysis
The data stored within the memory of the transient recorder (4096 8-bit integers) represents
acceleration magnitudes at equal time intervals. This data is then passed to the computer via
332 A. J. Pretlove
a serial link. The computer calculates and displays the frequency response spectrum from the
acceleration/time data using an FFT algorithm. This spectrum shows the quantity of a
particular frequency component in a signal. Strong peaks in the frequency spectrum are
likely to indicate natural frequencies.
Method
The accelerometer is attached to the cantilever using a thin layer of beeswax as adhesive.
This has the advantage that the accelerometer can be moved for the various experiments. The
cantilever is now gently plucked at the tip to initiate vibration and to trigger the start of
recording. After a short time a display of the output from the accelerometer appears on the
monitor oscilloscope. This is checked for quality and the test is repeated if necessary until a
good signal is obtained. The data is then transferred to the PC to allow the FFT to be made.
The frequency spectrum associated with the data is then displayed on the computer screen
and can be copied to the printer if desired. The next section of the program determines the
numerical value of peaks on the frequency spectrum. Various options are available within
the program for re-examination of time or frequency domain data.
In order to accentuate the various types of modes of vibration in the spectrum the impulse
applied to the beam can be either (i) vertically up or down at any suitable point along the
length of the beam, or (ii) horizontally, on the side of the beam (to excite sideways bending),
or (iii) with a twisting action at the tip (to excite torsion). At the same time the accelerometer
is moved to a position and orientation where it is most likely to receive a strong motion for
the type of mode concerned. Fig. 8 shows a typical spectrum obtained for a vertical impulse
applied near the cantilever tip with the accelerometer mounted to be vertically sensitive and
placed near the cantilever root. Fig. 9 is a print-out of peak values above a certain threshold
value and this identifies the actual frequencies of the vertical bending modes concerned.
Similar results were obtained for horizontal bending and for torsion. Two or three experi-
ments of each type are made to ensure repeatability of natural frequency results.
6. DISCUSSION
Table 1 shows a summary of the results obtained by all of the theoretical and experimental
methods. It can be seen that there is remarkably good agreement, in general, between the
exact theory, the finite element analysis and the experiments. The one mode for which there
is relatively poor agreement between the experiment and the theory is the second horizontal
bending vibration. The cause of this is assumed to be the difficulty in assuring adequate
horizontal clamping in the rig used. The simple type of clamp used is designed to assure
vertical clamping.
The discrete element results provide interesting reading. In the case of the three-degree-
of-freedom model the experimentally measured (by a student) flexibility matrix appears to
give better results than the theoretical flexibility matrix. This must be a maverick result and
careful measurement by the author gives a flexibility matrix much nearer in value to the
theoretical one. A clear message to students is that the three-degree-of-freedom model can
only predict the first mode of vibration with any accuracy (within 3% of the exact theory,
say) whilst the five-degree-of-freedom model produces the lowest two natural frequencies to
the same accuracy.
Fig. 8. Experimental Fourier spectrum for the beam.
Natural Frequency Search
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Threshold Value for Peak? 79
Frequency (Hz) Power dB
7.324218 90.07124
45.16601 100
126.4648 87.24828
246.582 79.86353
407.4706 81.11499
Frequency Interval = .2441406 Hz
Press PrintScreen for a printout
Fig. 9. Peak identification for Fig. 8.
334 A. J. Pretlove
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7. CONCLUSION
In this experiment, which is timetabled for six hours, students gain valuable experience in a
real setting of both theoretical and experimental vibration analysis and of the use of modern
vibration measuring and analysis equipment. In the theoretical work a comparison is made
between the EulerBernoulli theory and two approximate methods, one of which can be
semi-empirical. This type of semi-empirical approach can easily be extended to more realis-
tic structures.
The results obtained by the various approaches have a satisfying degree of agreement.
Such differences as there are can readily be attributed to the details of either the methods
used or the features of the real apparatus.
REFERENCES
[1] Thomson, W. T., Theory of Vibration with Applications, 4th edn, Chapman & Hall, London, 1993.
[2] Young, W. C., Roarks Formulas for Stress and Strain, 6th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1989.
336 A. J. Pretlove

Modern Methods in The Study of Beam Vibrations

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