CHAPTER TWO

FREE VIBRATION OF SINGLE-DEGREE-OF-

FREEDOM SYSTEMS

By: Amanuel Denekew

2.1 Introduction
▪ A system is said to undergo free vibration when it
oscillates only under an initial disturbance with no
external forces acting afterward.
Figure below shows a spring-mass system that
represents the simplest possible vibratory system.
▪ It is called a single-degree-of-freedom system, since
one coordinate (x) is sufficient to specify the
position of the mass at any time.

▪ There is no external force applied to the mass;

hence the motion resulting from an initial
disturbance will be free vibration.
▪ Since there is no element that causes dissipation of
energy during the motion of the mass, the amplitude
of motion remains constant with time; it is called
undamped system.

▪ In actual practice, except in a vacuum, the

amplitude of free vibration diminishes gradually
over time, due to the resistance offered by the
surrounding medium (such as air). Such vibrations
are said to be damped.
Free undamped vibration of single Degree of
Freedom
▪ The equation of motion for free undamped vibration
of single degree of freedom systems can be derived
by different methods.
Some of them are:
✓ Using Newton’s Second Law of Motion
✓ Principle of Virtual Displacements
✓ Principle of Conservation of Energy
❑ The equation of motion using Newton’s second
law of motion
To develop the equation of motion;
1. Select suitable coordinates
2. Establish (static) equilibrium position
3. Draw free-body-diagram (FBD) of mass
4. Use FBD to apply Newton’s second law of motion
Thus, if mass m is displaced a distance when acted
upon by a resultant force in the same direction,
Newton’s second law of motion gives
▪ If mass m is constant, this equation reduces to

▪ For a rigid body undergoing rotational motion,

Newton’s law gives

▪ Where is the resultant moment acting on the

body and and are the resulting
angular displacement and angular acceleration,
respectively.
▪ The procedure is now applied to the undamped
single-degree-of-freedom system shown in Figure
below.

▪ Here the mass is supported on frictionless rollers

and can have translatory motion in the horizontal
direction.
▪ When the mass is displaced a distance +x from its
static equilibrium position, the force in the spring is
kx, and the free-body diagram of the mass can be
represented as shown in Fig (c).

▪ Therefore equation (iii) represents equation of

motion for free undamped vibration of single degree
of freedom system.
❑ Equation of motion using the Principle of Virtual
Displacements

The principle of virtual displacements states that if a

system that is in equilibrium under the action of a set
of forces is subjected to a virtual displacement, then
the total virtual work done by the forces will be zero.

▪ Here the virtual displacement is defined as an

imaginary infinitesimal displacement given
instantaneously.
When the total virtual work done by all the forces is
set equal to zero, we obtain

➢ Since the virtual displacement can have an arbitrary

value, gives the equation of motion of the
spring-mass system as
❑ Equation of motion using the Principle of
Conservation of Energy.

▪ A system is said to be conservative if no energy is

lost due to friction or energy-dissipating non elastic
members.

▪ If no work is done on a conservative system by

external forces (other than gravity or other potential
forces), then the total energy of the system remains
constant.
▪ Since the energy of a vibrating system is partly
potential and partly kinetic, the sum of these two
energies remains constant.

▪ The kinetic energy T is stored in the mass by virtue

of its velocity, and the potential energy U is stored
in the spring by virtue of its elastic deformation.
Thus the principle of conservation of energy can be
expressed as:
T + U = Constant (OR)
𝑑
(T + U ) = 0
𝑑𝑡

Substituting equation (ii) and (iii) in to equation (i) yields

❖ Equation of Motion of a Spring-Mass System in
Vertical Position
Consider the configuration of the spring-mass system
shown in Figure below. The mass hangs at the lower
end of a spring, which in turn is attached to a rigid
support at its upper end.
➢ At rest, the mass will hang in a position called the
static equilibrium position, in which the upward
spring force exactly balances the downward
gravitational force on the mass.
➢ In this position the length of the spring is
where is the static deflection the elongation due
to the weight W of the mass m.
From Figure (a), we find that, for static equilibrium,

➢ Let the mass be deflected +x a distance from its

static equilibrium position; then the spring force is
-k(x + δst) as shown in Figure (c).
The application of Newton’s second law of motion to
mass m gives

➢ The solution of equation can be

found by assuming
where C and s are constants to be determined.
Substitution of Eq. (v) into Eq. (iv) gives
➢ Equation is called the auxiliary or the
characteristic equation corresponding to the
differential equation .
➢ The two values of s are the roots of the
characteristic equation, also known as the
eigenvalues or the characteristic values of the
problem.
➢ Since both values of s satisfy the characteristic
equation, the general solution of the differential
equation can be expressed as;
➢ By using the Euler's identities

➢ Equation can be rewritten as

where A1 and A2 are new constants. The constants C1

and C2 or A1 and A2 can be determined from the initial
conditions of the system.
➢ If the values of displacement and velocity
are specified as at t = 0,
We have, from equation

Thus the solution of Eq. subjected to the initial

conditions is given by

Equation can be expressed in a different form by

introducing the notation
where A and are the new constants, which can be
expressed in terms of A1and A2 as

Note the following aspects of the spring-mass system:

➢ If the spring-mass system is in a vertical position,
the natural frequency can be expressed as
➢ The spring constant k can be expressed in terms of
the mass m as

➢ So the value of ωn becomes

➢ Hence the natural frequency in cycles per second

and the natural period are given by
▪ Thus, when the mass vibrates in a vertical direction,
we can compute the natural frequency and the
period of vibration by simply measuring the static
deflection δst .

▪ We don’t need to know the spring stiffness k and

the mass m.
❑ Free Vibration of an Undamped Torsional
System
➢ If a rigid body oscillates about a specific reference
axis, the resulting motion is called torsional
vibration. In this case, the displacement of the body
is measured in terms of an angular coordinate.
➢ In a torsional vibration problem, the restoring
moment may be due to the torsion of an elastic
member or to the unbalanced moment of a force or
couple.
➢ Figure below shows a disc, which has a polar mass
moment of inertia JO’ mounted at one end of a solid
circular shaft, the other end of which is fixed.
Let the angular rotation of the disc about the axis of
the shaft be θ; θ also represents the shaft’s angle of
twist.
From the theory of torsion of circular shafts, we have
the relation

where Mt is the torque that produces the twist θ, G is

the shear modulus, is the length of the shaft, Io is the
polar moment of inertia of the cross section of the
shaft, given by
and d is the diameter of the shaft. If the disc is
displaced by θ from its equilibrium position,
the shaft provides a restoring torque of magnitude Mt.
Thus the shaft acts as a torsional spring with a
torsional spring constant

Equation of Motion
➢ The equation of the angular motion of the disc
about its axis can be derived by using Newton’s
second law or any of the methods as we discussed
above.
By considering the free body diagram of the disc as
shown in Figure b above, we can derive the equation
of motion by applying Newton’s second law of
motion:

which can be seen to be identical to Eq. if the polar

mass moment of inertia JO, the angular displacement θ,
and the torsional spring constant Kt are replaced by the
mass m, the displacement x, and the linear spring
constant k, respectively.
Thus the natural frequency of the torsional system is

and the period and frequency of vibration in cycles per

second are
The general solution of Eq. can be obtained,

where ωn is given by Eq. (2) and A1 and A2 can be

determined from the initial conditions.
If
the constants A1 and A2 can be found:
Free Vibration with Viscous Damping
➢ The viscous damping force F is proportional to the
velocity can be expressed as

where c is the damping constant or coefficient of

viscous damping and the negative sign indicates that
the damping force is opposite to the direction of
velocity.
A single-degree-of-freedom system with a viscous
damper is shown in Figure below.
If x is measured from the equilibrium position of the
mass m, the application of Newton’s law yields the
equation of motion:
To solve the above equation, we assume a solution in
the form

where C and s are undetermined constants. Inserting

this function into Eq. leads to the characteristic
equation

The roots of equation are

These roots give two solutions. These are;

Thus the general solution of Eq. is given by a

combination of the two solutions:

where C1 and C2 are arbitrary constants to be

determined from the initial conditions of the system.
❑ Critical Damping Constant and the Damping
Ratio.
The critical damping cc is defined as the value of the
damping constant c for which becomes
zero:

➢ For any damped system, the damping ratio ζ is

defined as the ratio of the damping constant to the
critical damping constant:
 c
ζ=
𝐶𝑐

Using Equations (7) and (8), we can write

Thus the solution, Eq. (6), can be written as

➢ It can be seen that the case ζ = 0 leads to the

undamped vibrations.
➢ Hence we assume that ζ ≠ 0 and consider the
following three cases.
Case 1. Under damped system (ζ < 1 or c < cc or
𝑐 𝑘
< ).
2𝑚 𝑚
For this condition, 𝜁 2 − 1 is negative and the roots
s1and s2 can be expressed as
and the solution of Equation (9), can be written in
different forms:

Where are arbitrary constants to be determined

from the initial conditions.
𝑥(𝑡) = 𝑒 −𝜁𝜔𝑛𝑡 ( C’1 (cos(𝜔dt)) + C’2 (sin(𝜔dt))
The motion described by Eq. (11) is a damped harmonic
motion of angular frequency 1 − 𝜁 2 𝜔𝑛, but because of
the factor 𝑒 −𝜁𝜔𝑛𝑡 , the amplitude decreases exponentially
with time.
The quantity ωd = 1 − 𝜁 2 𝜔𝑛 is called the frequency of
damped vibration.
➢ It can be seen that the frequency of damped
vibration ωd is always less than the undamped
natural frequency ωn .

Case 2. Critically damped system (ζ = 1 or c = cc or

𝑘
c/2m = ). In this case the two roots s1and s2 are
𝑚
equal:
Because of the repeated roots, the solution becomes;
Case 3. Over damped system (ζ > 1 or c > cc or c/2m
𝑘
> ). As 𝜁 2 − 1 > 0, the roots s1and s2 are real and
𝑚
distinct and are given by

the value of s2 << s1. In this case, the solution

becomes,
Torsional Systems with Viscous Damping
➢ The methods presented above for linear vibrations
with viscous damping can be extended directly to
viscously damped torsional (angular) vibrations.
For this, consider a single-degree-of-freedom torsional
system with a viscous damper, as shown in Figure
below.
➢ The viscous damping torque is given by

Where ct is the torsional viscous damping constant,

𝑑𝜃
ሶ
𝜃 = is the angular velocity of the disc, and the
𝑑𝑡
negative sign denotes that the damping torque is
opposite the direction of angular velocity.
➢ The equation of motion can be derived as
where Jo = mass moment of inertia of the disc,
kt = spring constant of the system (restoring
torque per unit angular displacement), and
θ = angular displacement of the disc.
➢ The solution can be found exactly as in the case of
linear vibrations.
➢ For example, in the under damped case, the
frequency of damped vibration is given by
THE END