More SHM

x, v, a and F POSITION
Left
x v a F

Equilibrium
Right

State the values of:

1. Displacement
2. Velocity
3. Acceleration
4. Force

Choose either MAX or 0

and indicate – or +
x, v, a and F POSITION
Left
x
MAX -
v
0
a
MAX +
F
MAX +
Equilibrium 0 MAX 0 0
Right MAX + 0 MAX - MAX -

State the values of:

1. Displacement
2. Velocity
3. Acceleration
4. Force

Choose either MAX or 0

and indicate – or +
So what does this look like as a graph?
Simple harmonic motion
Solutions
Damping
Sinusoidal nature of SHM
Recap of what we went through
Idea of SHM.
Restoring force is proportional to –displacement
A= cos2πft
A= sin2πft

Energy in SHM. Linked to EPE in mass spring systems.

Define SHM
SHM is the oscillatory motion of an object in which
the acceleration is directly proportional to the
displacement from a fixed point and always in the
opposite direction.
Pop that into a formula
a = -ω2x = -(2πf)2x

Remember that xmax = 

A

When xmax = +A then a= -(2πf)2x

When xmax = -A then a= +(2πf)2x
When x = 0 a=0
Review the solutions to the
equation
x = Asin(2πft)
x = Acos(2πft)

When do we use each of them??????

 x = Asin(2πft)
We use this bad boy when
x=0 at t=0.
In other words the
oscillation starts at the
equilibrium position and
moves to max
displacement +A
 x = Acos(2πft)
We use this bad boy when
x=+A at t=0.
In other words the
oscillation starts at the
end of the motion

DON’T FORGET THE RADS

2πft
 Displacement, Velocity and Acceleration
3 graphs represent an
object undergoing SHM.

The velocity time graph

can be found from the
displacement time graph
as velocity is the rate of
change of displacement.

x
v
t
Some points to note
x
v has a positive value when is
t positive.

x
v has a negative value when is negative.
t

Point in its x
x v
motion t

Equilibrium 0 max max

Maximum
+A/-A 0 0
displacement
The acceleration time graph
This can be figured out from the velocity time graph.
This is because a=
v
t
If you look at the displacement time graph and
acceleration time graph the a-t graph is inverted
compared to the x-t graph.
ACCELERATION IS IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION TO
DISPLACEMENT
Damped Oscillations
In theory free oscillations can go on forever.

In reality there are forces that oppose the motion

that cause the amplitude of the oscillations to
decrease.

Energy is being dissipated to the surroundings.

This is called DAMPING
Damped Motion
What happens in damped motion?

The amplitude of the oscillations decrease however,

the period of the oscillations does not change.
Damped Motion
The greater the damping effect the quicker the
amplitude of the oscillations will decrease.

This is because the forces opposing the motion are

much greater.
 Heavy Damping
The amplitude of the oscillation decrease rapidly to
zero.
This system may have the characteristic that when
released it will barely pass the equilibrium position
before stopping.
Critical Damping
The amplitude of the oscillation reaches zero in the
shortest time possible and doesn’t pass the
equilibrium position.
 Overdamped
In an overdamped system the object in motion is very
slow in returning to its equilibrium position.
Sinusoidal Nature of SHM
The period of a mass spring system is dependent on the
spring constant and the mass attached.

It is, oddly, independent of the amplitude.

When we work out the maths we get

m
T  2
k
Spider Web problem
(because it’s that time of year)

A small insect of mass 0.30g is caught in a spider web

of negligible mass.
The web vibrates predominantly with a frequency of
15Hz.
(a) Estimate the value of the spring constant of the
web
(b) At what frequency would you expect the web to
vibrate if an insect of mass 0.1g was trapped?
Spider web problem
We could rearrange the formula to

1 k
f 
2 m
This is just the inverse of the formula from 2 slides
ago. Rearrange this to get k.

k  (2f ) m 2
Spider web problem
Sub into the problem:

k = 2.7Nm-1.
Spider web problem (b)
You can just sub in 0.1x10-3 into the equation.

Or we can look at the relationship.

The mass decreases by 1/3.

So this means that f changes by a factor

1
1
3
So f increase by so 15 x = 26Hz
3 3
The Simple Pendulum
Is a pendulum oscillating really SHM?

At small displacements it essentially is and is

governed by this equation

l
T  2
g
The grandfather clock
Estimate the length of the pendulum in a grandfather
clock that ticks once per second.

What would the period be for a 1 metre long

pendulum?