Objective

The objectives of this report were to determine the natural frequency of a cantilever beam and study both
undamped and damped free vibration motion of a cantilever beam.

Introduction
Cantilever beam is a beam that is supported at one end with the other end overhanging and free. If there is
no external force applied on the system, the system will experience undamped free vibration. Undamped
free vibrations are oscillations where the total energy stays the same over time. This means that the
amplitude of the vibration stays the same. Damping restraining of vibratory motion, such as mechanical
oscillations, noise, and alternating electric currents by dissipation of energy. Damping of a system can be
described as overdamped, critically damped or underdamped.

Free Vibration

If a system, after an initial disturbance, is left to vibrate on its own, the ensuing vibration is known as free
vibration. No external force acts on the system. The oscillation of a simple cantilever beam is an
example of free vibration as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The simple cantilever beam shown in Figure 1 can be modelled as a mass-spring system where the
governing equation of motion is given by
mx kx or x n x 0
2

(1.1)

where m is the mass of the system and k is the stiffness of the system

n is known as the natural circular frequency of the system and is given by

k
m
n =

Equation (1) is a homogeneous second-order equation linear differential equation, has the following
general solution:

x (0)
x sin n t x (0) cos n t
n
(1.2)

The natural period of the oscillation is established from n = 2 or

m
2
k
(1.3)

The natural frequency of the system is

1 1 k
fn
2 m
(1.4)

Viscously Damped Vibration

Every mechanical system possesses some inherent degree of friction, which dissipates mechanical energy.
Precise mathematical models of the dissipative friction forces are usually complex. Viscous damping
force can be expressed by

Fd cx
(1.5)
 where c is the damping coefficient. The equation of motion of a free-damped vibration system is given as

mx cx kx 0
.

The general solution is given as

2 1 ) n t 2 1 )n t
x A1e ( A2 e (
(1.6)

where is the damping ratio. The radicand (2 1) may be positive, negative or zero, giving rise to three
categories of damped motion: > 1 (over-damped, Figure 2), = 1 (critically damped, Figure 2) and < 1
(under-damped, Figure 3).

Figure 2

Ce nt

Ce nt

Figure 3

The frequency of damped vibration d is given by

Figure
2
d 1 2n
(1.9)

Natural Frequency of A Cantilever Beam

Figure 4

The maximum deflection of the cantilever beam under a concentrated end force P is given by

PL3 P
y max
3EI k
(1.10)

3EI
k
L3
Therefore the stiffness of the beam is given by (1.11)

Where

L = length of the beam

bh 3
I
12
I = moment of inertia, for rectangular area,

b = width of the beam

h = height of the beam

E = modulus of elasticity, for aluminum, E = 70GPa

The static deflection of a cantilever beam y(x) is given as

 Px 2 y
y ( x) (3L x) max3 (3 x 2 L x 3 )
6 EI 2L

Expressed as velocity variation, gives

y max
y ( x ) 3
(3 x 2 L x 3 )
2L

The maximum kinetic energy of the beam itself is given by

L 2
1 m 1 33
y x dx
2
Tmax m y max
20 l 2 140

Compare it with the kinetic energy equation Tmax = meqv2 and therefore the equivalent mass of the beam
is meq = (33 / 140) m (1.12)

If a damper is added to the free end of the cantilever beam, the total equivalent mass is given by
meq = (33 / 140) m + mdamper (1.13)

Equipment and Materials

* Cantilever beam apparatus

* Computer

* DC 7104 Controller Software

* strain gauge

* strain recorder DC-104R

* compact flash memory card

* viscous damper

* ruler (1 meter)
Procedures

Figure 5

1. The computer and the strain recorder were switched on.

2. The strain recorder application software was started by double click on the DC104R Controller
shortcut icon on the computer desktop.

3. The experiment setup was shown by Figure 5. Please refer to the operational manual for the operation
of the strain recorder and the recorder application software.

4. The viscous damper was removed if it was attached to the beam.

5. The beam, y max (refer to Figure 4) was displaced and held by -20 mm, -15 mm, -10 mm, -5 mm, 0
mm, 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm and 20 mm and the strain recorder reading for each displacement value
manually from the Numerical Monitor screen of the application software was recorded.

6. The relationship of the displacement (of the free end of the beam) and the strain recorder reading was
obtained by plotting an appropriate graph using a spreadsheet.

7. The beam was displaced by 30 mm and the beam was left to vibrate on its own. The strain recorder
reading was recorded by clicking on the Play and Stop button.

8. The recorded file was retrieved by clicking on the Read USB button.
9. The graph of the beam was plotted by time, t against the displacement.

10. The experiment was repeated by replacement of the 30 mm beam with 50 mm beam.

11. The viscous damper was connected. Steps 7 and 10 were repeated using beam replacement of 30 mm
and 50 mm, respectively.
Discussion

Natural frequency is a frequency of a system which oscillates in the absence of damping

(Mechanical Vibration, 2008). For this experiment, a cantilever beam is used where it is fixed at one end
and the other end is free. The free end will deflect into a curve when load is applied on it. In fact, the
larger displacement of the beam being released from the initial position, the larger strain is created.
Moreover, a free vibration can be defined as the total energy of the oscillations stays the same and the
amplitude of the oscillations remains unchanged (Forced Vibration & Resonance). Hence, the frequency

1 1 k
=
can be determined by using the formula, fn 2 m .

From the equation above, it can be said that the frequency of the cantilever beam depends on the

3 EI
k=
mass and the stiffness of the beam. From the calculation part, L
3 since the cantilever beam is

aluminium and it has a modulus of elasticity of 70GPa, and we know the moment of inertia as well as the
length, hence the stiffness of the beam can be obtained.

In fact, the result obtained from the natural frequency experiment (without damping) tends to have
slight percentage errors as the experiment was conducted in a real world where air resistance, resistant at
the cantilevers joint, atmospheric pressure as well as viscosity of air were neglected. Consequently, a
slight variation of the reading was obtained from the calculation. In order to improve or reduce the
percentage error for the undamped oscillation, it should be conducted in a vacuum chamber.

Besides, for the damped vibration, the same method of displacement was carried out with the
presence of the damper. It was calculated that the natural frequency of the damped cantilever was 3.85Hz
which is significantly lesser than the undamped cantilever, and could be explained by the equation where

1 1 k
=
fn 2 m the mass, m is the mass of the cantilever and included the damper mass. From the

equation, we can see the relationship of the mass is inversely proportional to the frequency. Hence, that is
why the natural frequency of the damped cantilever is smaller. From the result obtained, the frequency
obtained where the beam is displaced in 30mm was 3.51Hz and gave a percentage error of 8.83% while
for the beam being displaced in 50mm was 3.63Hz and gave a percentage error of 5.71%.

For the damped oscillation, the theoretical natural frequency calculated did not take the friction
force caused by the damper as well as the viscosity of the water into account. Due to the energy is not
conserved, as part of the energy is released as friction, the damped oscillation will eventually stops. As a
result, higher percentage errors are obtained as compared to the undamped result.

Moreover, the presence of a damper causes the gravitational pull became hard to be neglected due
to the extra weight hanging at the end of it. This is because under an ideal case, a free oscillation even
though oscillates in a vertical direction (same direction as gravitational pull) tends to cancel out the
influences caused by the gravitational pull (College Physics Lab Simple Harmonic Motion, 2013)
(Neglecting gravity for spring & mass oscillator). Besides that, the presence of the load causes non-
uniform bending of the beam during oscillation and leads to non-uniform oscillations which affect the
accuracy of the results as the beam and the strain gauge might over bended. Moreover, it was found that
the strain reading of the cantilever beam tends to fluctuate in a small extent although there were no
disturbance on it and it was at its origin state. It might due to the sound waves collected by the cantilever
beam, as well as the vibration of the whole building due to the operation of centralize air conditioning
system, the wind resistance exerted on the building and so on so forth as the cantilever is secured on the
table where the table is secured on the seventh floor of the building. Hence, the vibration of the building
has a direct effect on the cantilever also.

In this experiment, a strain gauge is used to measure the strain of the cantilever beam. It is secured
at the fixed end of the cantilever beam to record the change in strain on the cantilever beam. It can be said
that the strain recorder records the change in longitudinal length of the beam as the beam bends during
vibration. Normally, a pair of strain gauge is used, as one of it is secured at the top of the beam, while the
other secured at the bottom of the beam. The strain gauge is a strip of conductive metal where its
electrical resistance alters when it undergone strain due to stress (Strain Gauges).

The recordings from the strain gauge is recorded directly and displayed on the computer screen.
Before carrying out the experiment, the cantilever was assured to be free of load. Moreover, the computer
software was balanced so that the readings as well as the recordings were free from zero errors. The
occurrence of zero errors might due to too much strain leads to the alteration of the strain gauges
electrical resistance. Hence, it is encouraged to monitor the reading of the strain gauge when unloaded to
minimize zero errors and balance the computer software whenever necessary.

Moreover, for the damping oscillation, the damper must be fully submerged in the water during
the oscillation. This is to prevent the damper from surfacing from the water. This is because water has
surface tension where the surfacing of the damper will affect the data as well as the recordings.
Furthermore, the viscosity of air and water are different, which will further affect the data.

During the fixing of the damper at the free end of the cantilever, it was found that the other groups
who were performing the same cantilever experiment fixed the damper at the end of the cantilever first;
then, the whole beam was bended in a large extent in order to let the fixed damper submerged into the
water filled container. This method could be said to be incorrect as the cantilever as well as the strain
gauge might be broken or ruined due to large extent of bending. The right method was to position the
water-filled container below the free end of the cantilever before fixing the damper. In other words, the
damper should be fixed during submerging in the water so that the strain gauge as well as the beam can
be prevented from over-straining. This is because when it is stress over its stress limit; the strain gauge
(metal piece) will deform permanently which would ruin the measuring device (Strain Gauges). This
method enables the strain gauges as well as the cantilevers life to be prolonged.

Cantilever is widely used in our daily life. It is used as brakes in mountain bikes (Rodriguez
Bicycle Company, 2012). Moreover, it is used to build bridges as well as a simple road signboard.
Cantilever saves space as it has a fixed end and a free end. For instance, a bus stop uses the cantilever as
the main objective was to shade as much people below as possible. Hence, if having an extra pillar in the
middle would be undesirable and reduces the capacity of it.

In conclusion, the experiment allows us to understand the concept of natural frequency as well as
the damping process. The damped oscillations by the cantilever beam were underdamp. The value of
obtained from the natural frequency of 30mm cantilever, 50mm cantilever, 30mm viscous damper and
50mm viscous damper are 6.45 Hz, 6.67 Hz, 3.51 Hz and 3.63 Hz.

References:

College Physics Lab Simple Harmonic Motion. (2013). Retrieved March 6, 2016, from College Physics
Lab Mechanics:
http://www.webassign.net/question_assets/tamucolphysmechl1/lab_6/manual.html

Forced Vibration & Resonance. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2016, from PhysicsNet.co.uk:
http://physicsnet.co.uk/a-level-physics-as-a2/further-mechanics/forced-vibrations-resonance/

Mechanical Vibration. (2008). Retrieved March 5, 2016, from math psu:

http://www.math.psu.edu/tseng/class/Math251/Notes-MechV.pdf

Neglecting gravity for spring & mass oscillator. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2016, from web.clark.edu:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:Gl_pBaVt290J:web.clark.edu/ggrey/Physics102/Notes/VERTICAL%2520SPRING
%2520AND%2520MASS%2520OSCILLATORS.doc+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
Rodriguez Bicycle Company. (2012). Why do you use cantilever brakes when everyone else is using V-
brakes or disc brakes? Seattle, Washington, United State of America.

Strain Gauges. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2016, from All About Circuits:
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-9/strain-gauges/