Structural Dynamics

Assignment 2

1. An air-conditioning unit with mass 720 kg is bolted at the middle of two parallel simply
supported steel beams (E = 210 GPa). The second moment of crosssectional area of each
beam is I = 5x10-6 m4. The motor in the unit runs at 500 revolutions per minute and
produces an unbalanced force of 300 N at this speed. The mass of the beams is neglected
and a viscous damping of 3 % is assumed for the system. Determine the amplitudes of
steady-state deflection of the unit which results from the unbalanced force.

2. A machine is supported on four steel springs for which damping can be neglected. The
natural frequency of vertical vibration of the machine-spring system is 250 cycles per
minute. The machine generates a vertical force p(t) = po sinwt. The amplitude of the
resulting steady-state vertical displacement is u = 6.00 mm when the machine is running
at 25 revolutions per minute.
(a) Calculate the amplitude of the steady state vertical displacement if the machine is
running at 190 rpm and 500 rpm.
(b) Calculate the amplitude of vertical motion of the machine for the three speeds 25, 190
and 500 rpm if the steel springs are replaced by four rubber isolators which provide the
same stiffness, but introduce a damping of 25% for the system. Comment on the
effectiveness of the isolators at various machine speeds.

3. A harmonic load F = 230sin(20t) N is applied on a machine with mass 350 kg. Determine
an isolation support (Damping ratio, Stiffness) such that:
- the maximum force transmitted to the floor at resonance is 360 N
- the maximum force transmitted to the floor is 80 N when the machine is running at 15
rad/s. NB : several solutions are possible

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4. A vibration isolation block (m = 400 kg) is to be installed in a laboratory so that the
vibration from adjacent factory operations will not disturb certain experiments. The
surrounding floor vibrates at 1800 cycles per minute. Determine the maximum stiffness
of the isolation system such that the motion of the isolation block is limited to 15% of the
floor vibration; neglect damping.

5. An elevated water tank to be treated as a SDOF system, weighs 250,000 Kg when filled with
water, the centroid of the mass being at a height of 7.5m from the ground (base). The horizontal
stiffness of the tank is 75,000N/cm. The tank is subjected to a rectangular pulse shown below
with po = 3000N and to= 3sec. Using the rectangular pulse shock spectrum, compute the
maximum displacement of the mass and the bending moment at the base of the tower.

6. Referring question number 5 above and using a time step of 0.05 second,
a) Show the dynamic load versus time history of the load.
b) Assuming zero initial displacement and velocity, determine the displacement history of the
mass using the linear interpolation of excitation method. Show also the displacement versus
time graph.