Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Universiti Teknologi MARA

40450 Shah Alam, Selangor
MEC521
VIBRATIONS

NAME:

Group

UiTM I.D.:

TUTORIAL 1 (4TH WEEK)

SINGLE DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEMS: FREE VIBRATION
Instruction: Answer all questions in a group of two.
1.

A body of mass 1.25 kg is suspended from a spring with a scale of 2 kN/m. A dashpot is
attached between the mass and the ground and has a resistance of 0.5 N at a velocity of
50 mm/s. The initial displacement is 20 mm. Determine:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)

the natural frequency of the system,

the critical damping factor of the dashpot,
the ratio of successive amplitudes,
the amplitude of the body 10 cycles after it was released from the initial
displacement, and
(e) the displacement of the body 1.25 s after it was released from the initial
displacement.
[Answers: (d) x10 = 0.036 mm; (e) x(1.25) = 0.1106 mm]
2.

A 5-kg mass is attached to a spring and makes damped oscillations. If the time 20 s is
needed to complete 50 complete oscillations and the ratio of the first downward
displacement to the sixth is found to be 22.5, calculate the spring stiffness and the
damping coefficient.
1 x
Hint: = ln o
n xn
[Answers: k = 1245.83 N/m; c = 15.64 Ns/m]

3.

A tightly wound helical coil spring is made from an 18 mm diameter bar of 0.2 %
hardened steel (G = 80 109 N/m2). The spring has 80 active coils with a coil diameter
of 16 cm. What is the change in length of the spring when it hangs vertically with one
end fixed and a 200-kg block attached to its other end?
(The stiffness of a helical coil spring is given by:

GD 4
64Nr 3

where D is the bar diameter, r is the coil radius, and N is the number of active turns.)
4.

The amplitude of a simple harmonic motion (SHM) is 0.20 cm and its oscillation
interval is 0.15 seconds. Determine the maximum velocity and maximum acceleration
of the motion.

Dr. David, N.V. 2014