NATURAL MODES OF VIBRATION OF BUILDING STRUCTURES CE 131 Matrix Structural Analysis Henri Gavin Fall, 2006

1 Mass and Stiness Matrices

Consider a building frame modeled by a set of rigid, massive oors supported by exible, massless columns. This provides the simplest representation of a building for the purposes of investigating lateral dynamic responses, as produced by earthquakes or strong winds. The lateral position of mass i with respect to the ground will be given the variable ri (t), ki is the lateral stiness of the columns in story i, and the mass of mass i is mi . For a three-story building, this kind of representation is shown in Figure 1.
m k3 m k2 m k1
1 2 3

r3

r2

r1

Figure 1. A simplied model of a building frame with massive rigid oors and light exible columns. Exercise 1: Show that the mass matrix and stiness matrix for this threestory building can be written: m1 0 0 M = 0 m2 0 0 0 m3

For an n-story building modeled in this way, the mass and stiness matrices are
0 M= . . .

and k1 + k 2 k2 0 k2 + k3 k3 . K = k2 0 k3 k3 0 m2 . . . ... 0 0 . . .

(1)

m1

(2)

0 mn

Natural Modes of Vibration

2 0 k3 0 ... ... ... 0 0 0 . . . 0

and

K=

k1 + k 2 k2 k2 + k 3 k2 0 . . . . . . . . . k3 0 . . . . . . 0

k3 + k4 k4 ... k4 ... ... . . . 0 ...

...

kn1 kn1 + kn kn 0 kn kn

kn1

(3)

2 Coupled Second Order Dierential Equations

The coupled n second order dierential equations can be written in matrix form as: M(t) + C (t) + Kr(t) = f (t) , r r r(0) = do , r(0) = vo , (4)

where C is a symmetric non-negative denite damping matrix and f (t) is a vector of n external horizontal forces applied to the n masses. Exercise 2: Write out the three ordinary dierential equations for n = 3 using the mass and stiness matrices of equation 1 and a diagonal damping matrix. Convince yourself that each of these three dierential equation involves two or more adjacent oor displacements and because of this, the three dierential equations are inter-related or coupled.

3 Natural Modes
For the time-being, assume that the structural system has almost no damping and no external forcing. In this case M(t) + Kr(t) = 0 , r r(0) = do , r(0) = vo , (5)

and one may presume that the natural responses will be sinusoidal with frequency n rad/s and a vector of amplitudes , = [1 r2 r3 ]T . Substituting the displacements r r r r(t) = sin n t , r and accelerations (t) = n sin n t , r r 2 into equation 5 and eliminating sin n t we obtain,
2 r K n M = 0 , r

(6)

which may be re-written as the generalized eigenvalue problem,

2 [K n M] = 0 . r

Natural Modes of Vibration

The square of the natural frequencies are the eigenvalues and the amplitudes of natural vibration are the associated eigenvectors. As long as M and K are positive denite, the natural frequencies will be positive. A planar building frame with n rigid oor masses will have n natural frequencies, ni , and n natural mode shapes, i , i = 1, . . . , n. For a r natural frequency ni and natural mode shape i satisfying equation 6, this equation may r T be pre-multiplied by i to obtain r
2 ni =

T Ki ri r , T Mi ri r

(7)

which is called the Rayleigh quotient for mode i. The natural modes are mass-orthogonal and stiness-orthogonal. This means that T Mj = ri r and T Kj = ri r
2 so that ni = ki /m . i

0 i=j m i = j i 0 i=j ki i = j

The n natural mode vectors 1 , . . . , n may be arranged column-wise into a modal r r matrix, R, R = [1 . . . n ] . r r Exercise 3: Use the WEAVE module entitled Building Vibrations - Natural Modes to investigate the eect of dierent mass and stiness distributions on the natural mode shapes. For the combinations of mass and stiness shown in Table 1, use the module to determine natural frequencies and natural mode vectors. Write the three natural frequencies and sketch the three mode vectors for the six cases shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Six cases of mass and stiness case: 1 2 3 4 m1 10 10 10 100 m2 10 10 10 10 m3 10 10 10 10 k1 100 1000 1000 1000 k2 1000 100 1000 1000 k3 1000 1000 100 1000

distribution.

5 10 100 10 1000 1000 1000

6 10 10 100 1000 1000 1000

units ton ton ton N/mm N/mm N/mm

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4 Proportional Damping
In general, mode vectors that are mass-orthogonal and stiness-orthogonal will not also be damping-orthogonal. In many lightly-damped structures, however, the damping may be approximately modeled by a matrix that is proportional to mass and stiness, C = M + K . This representation of damping is called Rayleigh damping or proportional damping. Exercise 4: Show that if the units of all terms in C are N/mm/s, the units of M is tons and the units of K is N/mm, then the unit of is (1/seconds) and the unit of is seconds. Exercise 5: Show that if the damping matrix is proportional to the mass and stiness matrices, then T Cj = ri r c i 0 i=j = mi + ki i = j . (8)

5 Modal Coordinates
At any point in time, the lateral displacement of the oor masses is given by the vector r(t), r(t) = [r1 (t), r2 (t), , rn (t)]T . Because the set of natural mode vectors lls the n-dimensional space of oor displacement vectors, the oor displacement vectors can be written as a weighted sum of the natural mode vectors or r(t) = 1 q1 (t) + 2 q2 (t) + + n qn (t) , r r r

r1 (t) r2 (t) . . . rn (t)

or

r11 r21 . . . rn1

q1 (t) +

r12 r22 . . . rn2

q2 (t) + +

r1n r2n . . . rnn

qn (t) ,

r1 (t) r2 (t) . . . rn (t)

or

r11 r12 r1n q1 (t) r21 r22 r2n q2 (t) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . rn1 rn2 rnn qn (t) r(t) = R q(t)

(9)

The vector q(t) is called the vector of modal coordinates. In a free vibration, q(t) are sinusoidal functions with a single frequency, q1 (t) oscillates only at the rst natural frequency, n1 , q2 (t) oscillates only at the second natural frequency, n2 , and so on. The free vibration of the masses, r(t), can involve all the modes of vibration, and can oscillate at all of the natural frequencies. The elements of the modal coordinate vector represent the amount of each mode present in the total response. Exercise 6: Show that the n by n matrices RT MR and RT KR are diagonal matrices.

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6 Un-coupled Second Order Dierential Equations

Substituting equation 9 into equation 4 results in q MR (t) + CRq(t) + KRq(t) = f (t) , q(0) = R1 do , q(0) = R1 vo .

Pre-multiplying both sides of this equation by the transpose of the modal matrix results in: q RT MR (t) + RT CRq(t) + RT KRq(t) = RT f (t) , q(0) = R1 do , q(0) = R1 vo .

Because the modal matrix is mass-orthogonal and stiness-orthogonal, and assuming the modal matrix is also damping-orthogonal (e.g., the damping is proportional), then the equation above may be written

m 1 0 . . . 0 0 m 2 . . . .. . 0 0 . . . 0 m n

q1 (t) q2 (t) . . . qn (t)

c 1 0 . . . 0 r11 r12 . . . r1n

0 c 2 r21 r22 . . . r2n

. . . .. . 0

0 . . . 0 c n

rn1 rn2 . . . rnn

q1 (t) q2 (t) . . . qn (t)

f1 (t) f2 (t) . . . fn (t)

+
,

k1

0
k2

0 . . . 0

. . . .. . 0

0 . . . 0 kn

q1 (t) q2 (t) . . . qn (t)

or

m qi (t) + c qi (t) + ki qi (t) = T f (t) ri i i

(10)

for each mode i = 1, . . . , n. This represents n un-coupled second order dierential equations in terms of the modal coordinates qi (t). All of the solutions pertaining to a single degree of freedom oscillator are relevant to equation 10. Diving both sides of equation 10 by m , i k 1 c r qi (t) + i qi (t) + i qi (t) = T f (t) , mi mi mi i or 1 2 qi (t) + 2i ni qi (t) + ni qi (t) = T f (t) , r mi i where i is the damping ratio associated with mode i, and i = c c i = i . c 2 mi ki ci

Exercise 7: Use the WEAVE module entitled Building Vibration - Natural Modes to determine values of and that will give approximately 5 percent damping in the rst mode and approximately 1 percent damping in the third mode for cases 2, 4, and 6 shown in Table 1. Does increasing increase the damping in the lower-frequency modes or the higher-frequency modes? Does increasing increase the damping in the lower-frequency modes or the higher-frequency modes?

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7 Initial Displacements and Free Response

If the initial displacements, do are proportional to the i-th natural mode vector, i , r then the free response ensuing from that initial displacement will consist entirely of the i-th mode, and will have no components from other modes. Exercise 8: Use the WEAVE module entitled Building Vibration - Natural Modes to investigate this property of natural modes. For a xed distribution of mass and stiness, set the initial displacement proportional to each of the three mode shape vectors, and observe that the free response consists almost entirely of that mode. Now select some other set of initial displacements and observe that the free response contains all three modes. Print a few plots of these mode-shape and free response plots and discuss the results in a short paragraph.

8 Explore!
Exercise 9: Use the WEAVE module entitled Building Vibration - Natural Modes to explore the eects of very large and very small values of mass, damping, and stiness. What happens if you increase and/or so that the damping is more than 100 percent? What happens if is positive and is slightly negative, and vice-versa? What happens if one of the stiness coecients is much much larger than the other coecients? What happens if one of the stiness coecients is slightly negative? What happens if one of the mass coecients is very negative?