MODULE 5

STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS
INTRODUCTION

Structural analysis is mainly concerned with finding out the behaviour of a structure when
subjected to some action. This action can be in the form of load due to the weight of things such
as people, furniture, wind, snow, etc. or some other kind of excitation such as an earthquake,
shaking of the ground due to a blast nearby, etc. In essence all these loads are dynamic, including
the self-weight of the structure because at some point in time these loads were not there. The
distinction is made between the dynamic and the static analysis on the basis of whether the
applied action has enough acceleration in comparison to the structure's natural frequency. If a
load is applied sufficiently slowly, the inertia forces (Newton's second law of motion) can be
ignored and the analysis can be simplified as static analysis. Structural dynamics, therefore, is a
type of structural analysis which covers the behaviour of structures subjected to dynamic (actions
having high acceleration) loading. Dynamic loads include people, wind, waves, traffic,
earthquakes, and blasts. Any structure can be subject to dynamic loading. Dynamic analysis can
be used to find dynamic displacements, time history, and modal analysis.

A dynamic analysis is also related to the inertia forces developed by a structure when it is excited
by means of dynamic loads applied suddenly (e.g., wind blasts, explosion, earthquake).

A static load is one which varies very slowly. A dynamic load is one which changes with time
fairly quickly in comparison to the structure's natural frequency. If it changes slowly, the
structure's response may be determined with static analysis, but if it varies quickly (relative to the
structure's ability to respond), the response must be determined with a dynamic analysis.

Dynamic analysis for simple structures can be carried out manually, but for complex structures
finite element analysis can be used to calculate the mode shapes and frequencies. An open-
source, lightweight, free software DYSSOLVE can be used to solve basic structural dynamics
problems.
Importance of vibration in engineering

WHAT IS VIBRATION?
Vibration can be defined as simply the cyclic or oscillating motion of a machine or machine
component from its position of rest.
Vibration is a repetitive, periodic, or oscillatory response of a mechanical system. The rate of the
vibration cycles is termed frequency. Repetitive motions that are somewhat clean and regular,

and that occur at relatively low frequencies, are commonly called oscillations, while any
repetitive motion, even at high frequencies, with low amplitudes, and having irregular
and random behavior falls into the general class of vibration. system and may be
representative of its free and natural dynamic behavior. Also, vibrations may be forced
onto a system through some form of excitation. The excitation forces may be either
generated internally within the dynamic system, or transmitted to the system through an
external source. When the frequency of the forcing excitation Forces Involved

In any vibrating system, there are a total of four types of forces that need to be taken into
account. These are listed here.

Inertial Force
Spring Force

Damping Force

Total External Force

Inertial Force

Inertia Force occurs because acceleration is present.

The Spring force arises due to the elasticity of the material. It follows the Hooke's Law and is
proportional to the displacement.
While these forces are enough to set up harmonic vibrations in a system, most systems also have
intrinsic damping even if an external damper is not used. The damping force tends to oppose
motion and acts against the velocity in most cases (the exception is negative damping). It
generally varies with some power of the velocity though the most useful is viscous damping
which varies linearly with velocity.

The total External force is the remaining force that acts on the system. It is the force that causes
the excitation in the first place and may or may not be present while the system vibrates.

coincides with that of the natural motion, the system will respond more vigorously with
increased amplitude. This condition is known as resonance, and the associated frequency is
called the resonant frequency. There are good vibrations, which serve a useful purpose. Also,
there are bad vibrations, which can be unpleasant or harmful. For many engineering systems,
operation at resonance would be undesirable and could be destructive. Suppression or
elimination of bad vibrations and generation of desired forms and levels of good vibration are
general goals of vibration engineering. Applications of vibration are found in many branches of
engineering such as aeronautical and aerospace, civil, manufacturing, mechanical, and even
electrical.
Usually, an analytical or computer model is needed to analyze the vibration in an engineering
system. Models are also useful in the process of design and development of an engineering
system for good performance with respect to vibrations. Vibration monitoring, testing, and
experimentation are important as well in the design, implementation, maintenance, and repair of
engineering systems.

Types of vibration

There are two general classes of vibrations - free and forced. Free vibration takes place when a
system oscillates under the action of forces inherent in the system itself, and when external
impressed forces are absent. The system under free vibration will vibrate at one or more of its
natural frequencies, which are properties of the dynamic system established by its mass and
stiffness distribution.
Vibration that takes place under the excitation of external forces is called forced vibration. When
the excitation is oscillatory, the system is forced to vibrate at the excitation frequency. If the
frequency of excitation coincides with one of the natural frequencies of the system, a condition
of resonance is encountered, and dangerously large oscillations may result. The failure of major
structures such as bridges, buildings, or airplane wings is an awesome possibility under
resonance. Thus, the calculation of the natural frequencies of major importance in the study of
vibrations.

Vibrating systems are all subject to damping to some degree because energy is dissipated by
friction and other resistances. If the damping is small, it has very little influence on the natural
frequencies of the system, and hence the calculation for the natural frequencies are generally
made on the basis of no damping. On the other hand, damping is of great importance in limiting
the amplitude of oscillation at resonance.

The number of independent coordinates required to describe the motion of a system is called
degrees of freedom of the system. Thus, a free particle undergoing general motion in space will
have three degrees of freedom, and a rigid body will have six degrees of freedom, i.e., three
components of position and three angles defining its orientation. Furthermore, a continuous
elastic body will require an infinite number of coordinates (three for each point on the body) to
describe its motion; hence, its degrees of freedom must be infinite. However, in many cases,
parts of such bodies may be assumed to be rigid, and the system may be considered to be
dynamically equivalent to one having finite degrees of freedom. In fact, a surprisingly large
number of vibration problems can be treated with sufficient accuracy by reducing the system to
one having a few degrees of freedom.

Free vibration occurs when a mechanical system is set off with an initial input and then allowed
to vibrate freely. Examples of this type of vibration are pulling a child back on a swing and then
letting go or hitting a tuning fork and letting it ring. The mechanical system will then vibrate at
one or more of its "natural frequency" and damp down to zero.

Forced vibration is when an alternating force or motion is applied to a mechanical system.

Examples of this type of vibration include a shaking washing machine due to an imbalance,
transportation vibration (caused by truck engine, springs, road, etc.), or the vibration of a
building during an earthquake. In forced vibration the frequency of the vibration is the frequency
of the force or motion applied, with order of magnitude being dependent on the actual
mechanical system.

Vibration analysis

The fundamentals of vibration analysis can be understood by studying the simple massspring
damper model. Indeed, even a complex structure such as an automobile body can be modeled as
a "summation" of simple massspringdamper models. The massspringdamper model is an
example of a simple harmonic oscillator. The mathematics used to describe its behavior is
identical to other simple harmonic oscillators such as the RLC circuit.

Note: In this article the step by step mathematical derivations will not be included, but will focus
on the major equations and concepts in vibration analysis. Please refer to the references at the
end of the article for detailed derivations.

Free vibration without damping

To start the investigation of the massspringdamper we will assume the damping is negligible
and that there is no external force applied to the mass (i.e. free vibration). The force applied to
the mass by the spring is proportional to the amount the spring is stretched "x" (we will assume
the spring is already compressed due to the weight of the mass). The proportionality constant, k,
is the stiffness of the spring and has units of force/distance (e.g. lbf/in or N/m). The negative sign
indicates that the force is always opposing the motion of the mass attached to it:
The force generated by the mass is proportional to the acceleration of the mass as given by
Newtons second law of motion :

The sum of the forces on the mass then generates this ordinary differential equation:

Simple harmonic motion of the massspring system

If we assume that we start the system to vibrate by stretching the spring by the distance of A and
letting go, the solution to the above equation that describes the motion of mass is:

This solution says that it will oscillate with simple harmonic motion that has an amplitude of A
and a frequency of fn. The number fn is one of the most important quantities in vibration analysis
and is called the undamped natural frequency. For the simple massspring system, fn is defined
as:
Note: Angular frequency (=2 f) with the units of radians per second is often used in
equations because it simplifies the equations, but is normally converted to standard frequency
(units of Hz or equivalently cycles per second) when stating the frequency of a system. If you
know the mass and stiffness of the system you can determine the frequency at which the system
will vibrate once it is set in motion by an initial disturbance using the above stated formula.
Every vibrating system has one or more natural frequencies that it will vibrate at once it is
disturbed. This simple relation can be used to understand in general what will happen to a more
complex system once we add mass or stiffness. For example, the above formula explains why
when a car or truck is fully loaded the suspension will feel softer than unloaded because the
mass has increased and therefore reduced the natural frequency of the system.

What causes the system to vibrate: from conservation of energy point of view

Vibrational motion could be understood in terms of conservation of energy. In the above example
we have extended the spring by a value of x and therefore have stored some potential energy
(\tfrac {1}{2} k x^2) in the spring. Once we let go of the spring, the spring tries to return to its
un-stretched state (which is the minimum potential energy state) and in the process accelerates
the mass. At the point where the spring has reached its un-stretched state all the potential energy
that we supplied by stretching it has been transformed into kinetic. The mass then begins to
decelerate because it is now compressing the spring and in the process transferring the kinetic
energy back to its potential. Thus oscillation of the spring amounts to the transferring back and
forth of the kinetic energy into potential energy. In our simple model the mass will continue to
oscillate forever at the same magnitude, but in a real system there is always something called
damping that dissipates the energy, eventually bringing it to rest.
Free vibration with damping

Mass Spring Damper Model

We now add a "viscous" damper to the model that outputs a force that is proportional to the
velocity of the mass. The damping is called viscous because it models the effects of an object
within a fluid. The proportionality constant c is called the damping coefficient and has units of
Force over velocity (lbf s/ in or N s/m).

By summing the forces on the mass we get the following ordinary differential equation:

The solution to this equation depends on the amount of damping. If the damping is small enough
the system will still vibrate, but eventually, over time, will stop vibrating. This case is called
underdamping this case is of most interest in vibration analysis. If we increase the damping just
to the point where the system no longer oscillates we reach the point of critical damping (if the
damping is increased past critical damping the system is called overdamped). The value that the
damping coefficient needs to reach for critical damping in the mass spring damper model is:

To characterize the amount of damping in a system a ratio called the damping ratio (also known
as damping factor and % critical damping) is used. This damping ratio is just a ratio of the actual
damping over the amount of damping required to reach critical damping. The formula for the

damping ratio ( ) of the mass spring damper model is:

Damped and undamped natural frequencies

The major points to note from the solution are the exponential term and the cosine function. The
exponential term defines how quickly the system damps down the larger the damping ratio,
the quicker it damps to zero. The cosine function is the oscillating portion of the solution, but the
frequency of the oscillations is different from the undamped case.

The frequency in this case is called the "damped natural frequency", and is related to the
undamped natural frequency by the following formula:

The damped natural frequency is less than the undamped natural frequency, but for many
practical cases the damping ratio is relatively small and hence the difference is negligible.
Therefore the damped and undamped description are often dropped when stating the natural
frequency (e.g. with 0.1 damping ratio, the damped natural frequency is only 1% less than the
undamped).

The plots to the side present how 0.1 and 0.3 damping ratios effect how the system will ring
down over time. What is often done in practice is to experimentally measure the free vibration
after an impact (for example by a hammer) and then determine the natural frequency of the
system by measuring the rate of oscillation as well as the damping ratio by measuring the rate of
decay. The natural frequency and damping ratio are not only important in free vibration, but also
characterize how a system will behave under forced vibration.

Harmonic Motion
Oscillatory motion may repeat itself regularly, as in the balance wheel of a watch, or display
considerable irregularity, as in earthquakes. When the motion is repeated in equal intervals of
time T, it is called period motion. The repetition time t is called the period of the oscillation, and

its reciprocal, ,is called the frequency. If the motion is designated by the time function

x(t), then any periodic motion must satisfy the relationship .

Harmonic motion is often represented as the projection on a straight line of a point that is
moving on a circle at constant speed, as shown in Fig. 1. With the angular speed of the line o-p
designated by w , the displacement x can be written as

(1)

Harmonic Motion as a Projection of a Point Moving on a Circle

The quantity w is generally measured in radians per second, and is referred to as the angular
frequency. Because the motion repeats itself in 2p radians, we have the relationship

(2)

where t and f are the period and frequency of the harmonic motion, usually measured in seconds
and cycles per second, respectively.
The velocity and acceleration of harmonic motion can be simply determined by differentiation of
Eq. 1. Using the dot notation for the derivative, we obtain

(3)

(4)

Simple Harmonic Motion

Generally free natural vibrations occur in elastic system when a body moves away from its rest
position. The internal forces tend to move the body back to its rest position. The restoring
forces are in proportion to the displacement. The acceleration of the body which is directly
related to the force on the body is therefore always towards the rest position and is proportional
to the displacement of the body from its rest position. The body moves with simple harmonic
motion...
Simple harmonic motion is most conveniently shown as the projection on the vertical (x) axis of
a point rotating in a circular motion (radius a) at a constant angular velocity .
The tangential velocity of the point = a.
The acceleration of the rotating point toward the centre of the circle..= 2. a
 ..
Free Natural Vibrations

D'Alembert's principle
D'Alembert's principle, also known as the Lagranged'Alembert principle, is a statement of
the fundamental classical laws of motion. It is named after its discoverer, the French physicist
and mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The principle states that the sum of the differences
between the forces acting on a system of mass particles and the time derivatives of the momenta
of the system itself along any virtual displacement consistent with the constraints of the system,
is zero. Thus, in symbols d'Alembert's principle is written as following,

where

is an integer used to indicate (via subscript) a variable corresponding to a

particular particle in the system,
is the total applied force (excluding constraint forces) on the -th particle,
is the mass of the -th particle,
is the acceleration of the -th particle,
together as product represents the time derivative of the momentum of the -th
particle, and
is the virtual displacement of the -th particle, consistent with the constraints.

It is the dynamic analogue to the principle of virtual work for applied forces in a static system
and in fact is more general than Hamilton's principle, avoiding restriction to holonomic systems.
A holonomic constraint depends only on the coordinates and time. It does not depend on the
velocities. If the negative terms in accelerations are recognized as inertial forces, the statement of
d'Alembert's principle becomes The total virtual work of the impressed forces plus the inertial
forces vanishes for reversible displacements.[2]

This above equation is often called d'Alembert's principle, but it was first written in this
variational form by Joseph Louis Lagrange.D'Alembert's contribution was to demonstrate that in
the totality of a dynamic system the forces of constraint vanish. That is to say that the

generalized forces need not include constraint forces.

Single Degree of Freedom System

The simplest vibratory system can be described by a single mass connected to a spring (and
possibly a dashpot). The mass is allowed to travel only along the spring elongation direction.
Such systems are called Single Degree-of-Freedom (SDOF) systems and are shown in the
following figure,

Equation of Motion for SDOF Systems

SDOF vibration can be analyzed by Newton's second law of motion, F = m*a. The analysis can
be easily visualized with the aid of a free body diagram,

The resulting equation of motion is a second order, non-homogeneous, ordinary differential

equation:

with the initial conditions,

Equation is a linear, time invariant, second order differential equation.

 Series Combination A typical spring mass system having springs in series combination is
shown above. The two springs can be replaced by a equivalent spring having equivalent stiffness

equal to k as shown in the figure

Springs in series
When springs are in series, they experience the same force but under go different deflections.

For the two systems to be equivalent, the total static deflection of the original and the equivalent
system must be the same.

Therefore if the springs are in series combination, the equivalent stiffness is equal to the
reciprocal of sum of the reciprocal stiffnesses of individual springs.As an application example,
consider the vertical bounce (up-down) motion of a passenger car on a road. Considering one
wheel assembly we can develop what is known as a quarter car model as shown in fig. For
typical passenger cars, the tyre stiffness is of the order of 200,000N/m while the suspension
stiffness is of the order of 20,000N/m. Also, the vehicle mass per wheel (sprung mass) can be
taken to be of the order of 250kg while the un-sprung mass (i.e., mass of wheel, axle etc not
supported by suspension springs) is less than 50kg. Reciprocal of tyre stiffness is negligible
compared to reciprocal of suspension stiffness or in other words, the tyre is very rigid compared
to the soft suspension. Hence an equivalent one d.o.f. model can be taken to be as shown in Fig.

Fig Quater Car model Fig Spring mass system