
where
(d)
Equation (c) is plotted
28
in Figure 5.41 for
o
0.0424, a 0.4, and z
0.1. Thus, the non-dimensional period is v
n
T 2p/
o
148.2 andv
n
/v
o
1/
o
23.57, which indicates that the 23rd and 24th harmonics fall in the
vicinity of v
n
. In Figure 5.41a, we see that the normalized output displace-
ment response overshoots the input pulse’s amplitude and then exhibits a de-
caying oscillation about the pulse’s normalized height. Since v
n
/v
o
23.57,
the period of the pulse train is 23.57 times longer than the period of the nat-
ural frequency of the system; therefore, the nondimensional period of the de-
caying oscillation is 148.2/23.57 2p. We will show in Section 6.3 that this
response is equivalent to the response of a single degree-of-freedom system
subjected to a suddenly applied constant force. When damping increases sub-
stantially, these oscillations are almost eliminated as shown in Figure 5.41e.
The results plotted in Figure 5.41b are the amplitude spectrum of the
pulse train before it is applied to the mass and the amplitude spectrum of
the displacement of the mass in response to this force. We have also plotted
the system’s amplitude response function H() for reference. We see that the
system’s amplitude response function greatly magnifies the amplitude of
those components of the force that have frequency components in the vicin-
ity of the system’s natural frequency—the damping-dominated region. It is
this magnification that produces, in the time domain, the overshoot and
oscillations at a frequency equal to the system’s damped natural frequency.
We now see why large damping eliminates these oscillations. As shown in
Figure 5.41f, the amplitude components in the neighborhood of the system’s
natural frequency are all slightly attenuated; thus, the output response more
closely follows the input.
The next case we consider is where
o
1/3; that is, the natural fre-
quency of the system is three times the fundamental frequency of the pulse
train. Thus, the nondimensional period is v
n
T 2p/
o
18.9 and v
n
/v
o
1/
o
3.0. We see from Figure 5.41d that since the pulse train’s third har-
monic coincides with the natural frequency of the system, the amplitude of
the third harmonic undergoes the maximum magnification. Thus, the time do-
main response, which is shown in Figure 5.41c, is dominated by the compo-
nent whose frequency is coincident with the system’s natural frequency. Con-
sequently, the displacement response does not bear any resemblance to the
input forcing function, except that it has the same period.
The responses of a linear vibratory system subjected to a saw-tooth type
forcing waveform given by entry b of Table B in Appendix B are shown in
Figure 5.42. Several qualitative aspects of these responses are similar to those
u1
i
2 tan
1
2z
i
1
2
i
c
i
1
i
2
1
211
2
i
2
2
12z
i
2
2
`
sin 1ipa2
ipa
`
i 1, 2, . . .
5.9 Response to Excitation with Harmonic Components 261
28
200 terms were used in the summation.