AM1100 Engineering Mechanics

Tutorial 10 Mechanical Vibrations

1. A 90 kg man stands at the end of a diving board (Figure 1) and causes a vertical oscillation which is
observed to have a period of 0.6s. What is the static deflection
st
at the end of the board. Neglect
mass of board.

Figure 1 Figure 2
2. An energy-absorbing car bumper with its springs initially undeformed has an equivalent spring
constant of 525 kN/m. If the 1200 kg car approaches a massive wall with a speed of 8 km/h (Figure2).
Find (a) velocity of the car as a function of time during contact with the wall, where t=0 is the
beginning of the impact and (b) maximum deflection x
max
of the bumper.
3. A model of a single story building is shown in figure 3. The bar of mass m is supported by two light
elastic upright columns whose upper and lower ends are fixed against rotation. For each column, if a
force P and corresponding moment M were applied as shown in the RHS of the figure, the deflection
would be = PL
3
/12EI where L is the effective column length, E is the youngs modulus and I is the area
moment of inertia of the column cross section with respect to its neutral axis. Find the natural
frequency of horizontal oscillation of the bar when the columns bend as shown in figure.

Figure 3 Figure 4
4. A 2.5 kg spring supported cylinder is set into free vertical vibration and is observed to have a period of
0.75 s in part (a) of figure 4. The system is then completely immersed in oil bath in part (b) of figure 4
and the cylinder is displaced from its equilibrium position and released. Viscous damping ensues and
the ratio of two successive positive displacement amplitudes is 4. Compute the viscous damping ratio ,
viscous damping constant c and the equivalent spring constant k.
5. The 2 kg mass is released from rest at a distance of x
0
to the right of the equilibrium position (Figure 5).
Determine the displacement x as a function of time.

Figure 5 Figure 6
6. Derive an expression for the transmission ratio T for the system of figure 6. This ratio is defined as the
maximum force transmitted to the base divided by the amplitude F
0
of the forcing function. Express
your answers in terms of , , n and the magnification factor M.
7. A single cylinder 4 stroke gasoline engine (mass = 90 kg) is mounted on four stiff spring pads, each with
a stiffness of 30(10
3
) kN/m and is designed to run at 3600 rev/min. The mounting system is equipped
with viscous dampers which have a large enough combined viscous damping coefficient c so that the
system is critically damped when it is given a vertical displacement and then released while not
running. When the engine is running, it fires every other revolution causing a periodic vertical
discplacement modeled by 1.2cost mm with t in seconds. Determine the magnification factor M and
the overall damping coefficient c.