Introdu

tion to Theory of Vibrations

Manish Shrikhande
Department of Earthquake Engineering
Indian Institute of Te hnology Roorkee
Introdu tion

Vibration, as a phenomenon, is very ommon. So ommon in fa t that most of the times

we do not even take a note of it. Several household applian es generate vibrations, su h
as refrigerators, washing ma hines, mixer and grinders, et . These vibrations are generated
due to the a tion of some moving and/or rotating parts inside the applian e. We do not
take a note of these vibrations unless those are a ompanied by unusual sound and/or with
large amplitudes. Similarly, we do not per eive the ambient vibrations of stru tures | manmade, or natural | under the in uen e of normal environmental onditions. However, the
vibrations be ome more per eptible when the stru tures are subje ted to unusual onditions,
su h as strong gusts during turbulent winds, pressure waves due to explosions, operation of
a heavy ma hinery with moving parts, ground motions due to earthquakes, et . It is the
vibratory response of stru tures to su h unusual ex itations that has far rea hing impli ations
for the safe design of stru tures.
Sin e the external ex itations that lead to signi ant vibrations a t only for a nite
duration and that too only on e in a while, it is very tempting to ignore those and hope that
these unusual loading onditions will not be en ountered during the life of the stru ture. This
pra ti e is representative of a disaster waiting to happen if su h a stru ture is alled upon
to withstand any of the above mentioned unusual loading onditions. It so happens that
stru tures an be made to withstand these unusual dynami loads with only an in remental
in rease in investment. The rst step towards a sound design for dynami ee ts begins
with an understanding of the loading onditions themselves and the primary purpose of a
stru tural system. A stru tural system, by denition, is required to provide a safe path to
transfer the externally applied loads to the foundation level. While this load path is available
naturally for the loads applied verti ally, as in the ase of gravity loads (e.g., dead loads), a
safe load path has to be spe i ally provided for the loads applied horizontally (or, laterally),
as shown in Fig. 1. Although the dynami loads an be oriented in arbitrary dire tions, those
an be resolved into a set of three mutually orthogonal omponents. Of these, the verti al
omponent is generally not of serious on ern (ex ept, in spe ial situations like antilever
overhangs) as the safe load path is naturally available. However, it is the provision of a safe
transfer path for lateral loads that makes the primary dieren e to a stru ture surviving or
perishing.
These basi issues in designing for lateral loads do not hange in the ase of designing
for vibrations aused by the dynami lateral loads. The only additional fa tor is the onsid-

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(a)

F(t)
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(b)

Figure 1: (a) Stati , gravity loads, and (b) Dynami , lateral loads a ting on a stru ture
eration of fundamental physi al prin iples of vibratory motion for estimating the maximum
magnitudes of for es and the response of stru ture to these for es. Spe i ally, the prin iple
of onservation of energy and Newton's laws of motion form the ba kbone of an analyti al study of the vibration problem. We shall, however, explore the vibration problem in a
qualitative manner and steer lear of any analyti al formulation.
Stru tures as Personalities!

The most elementary vibrating system that one an

think of is also the one with whi h almost everybody is
familiar. It is the simple pendulum | a heavy bob suspended from a (supposedly) weightless string, as shown
in Fig. 2. Let us re apitulate the essential hara teristi s of this system. The pendulum is set into vibratory

motion (simple harmoni motion, in this ase) by releasing the bob from one of the extreme positions with
no sla k in the string. As the bob goes from one extreme position, rosses the mean position, goes to another extreme position, omes ba k towards the mean
position, and then goes to the rst extreme position
mg
again it ompletes one y le or, os illation. The time
taken to omplete one y le/os illation is known as the
time period (or, natural period) of the pendulum. As
Figure 2: A simple pendulum
demonstrated rst by Galileo, the natural period depends only on the length of the string with whi h the
bob is suspended. As the name suggests, the natural period is a hara teristi of a dynami al/vibratory system. At either of the extreme positions, the potential energy of the bob is
at its maximum, while its kineti energy is zero. As the bob rea hes its mean position, the

Tall, slender structure has

long natural period and is
more flexible

Short, squat structure has

short natural period and is
more regid.
Direction of Vibration

(a)

(b)

Figure 3: Chara teristi s of dierent stru tural types: (a) tall, slender stru ture has long
natural period, and (b) short, squat stru ture has short natural period
kineti energy is at its maximum with potential energy redu ing to zero. This inter hange
in the form of energy ontinues throughout the vibration.
Just as every person has his/her unique personality, stru tures too have dierent personalities. In the parlan e of theory of vibrations we term those as the natural period(s)
and damping. The natural periods (or, natural frequen ies being the re ipro al of natural
period) are by far the most important set of personality traits that distinguish a stru tural
system. The signi an e of these natural frequen ies an be as ertained from the fa t that
at only these nite number of frequen ies a simple harmoni motion of entire stru ture is
possible. Just as some ommon hara teristi s an be as ribed to a group of people on
the basis of their similar/ ommon ba kgrounds, similar general omments an also be made
about the stru tural types. Typi ally, tall, slender stru tures have longer natural periods
and are more exible in omparison with the short, squat stru tures whi h are hara terised
by short natural periods and are relatively more sti. This asso iation of long natural period
with tall stru tures and short natural period with short stru tures an be explained with an
analogy to a simple pendulum shown in Fig. 3. Though this analogy is a little too simplisti ,
it does help to elu idate the ore issue | hanges in dynami hara teristi s of stru tures
with onguration, plan and elevation. Due to these dieren es in natural hara teristi s it
is important to avoid any oupling of su h vastly dierent stru tural types. If su h a oupling
annot be avoided then it is ne essary to a ount for their dierent dynami hara teristi s
in the stru tural design al ulations.
Personality Traits and Response to External Stimulus

Sin e every individual has a unique personality his/her rea tion to an external stimulus will
also be unique. This rea tion to an external stimulus is always onditioned by the person's
personality. Similarly, the response of dierent stru tures to a given dynami loading will
be dierent due dieren es in their e entri ities and dynami hara teristi s, viz., natural
frequen ies (or, period), and to a lesser extent damping. Everybody is familiar with the
on ept of resonan e. The very a t of tuning a radio re eiver to a parti ular radio station

T3
T2

Force

T1

time

Figure 4: Dierent stru tural systems subje ted to identi al dynami ex itation
(identied by the broad ast frequen y) is an example of resonan e. Here, the dynami
hara teristi of re eiver set is hanged by means of a tuner (a variable apa itor) so that the
natural frequen y of the internal LRC ir uit/os illator is tuned to the frequen y at whi h
the signals are being broad ast by that parti ular radio station. This situation represents
the ase of re eiver os illator being ex ited by the radio signals of the same frequen y as the
natural frequen y of the os illator resulting into a multi-fold ampli ation of the input signal.
The radio signals of other frequen ies, broad ast by other stations, are also present in the
environment but the re eiver listens to only those signals whi h are of the same frequen y
as the natural frequen y of the re eiver. The signals of other frequen ies are not amplied
as the re eptivity of the re eiver for other frequen ies is very low.
The situation of a stru tural system subje ted to dynami loads is quite similar to that of
a radio re eiver. Figure 4 shows three stru tural systems with dierent natural periods being
ex ited by an identi al dynami load. The ondition of resonan e o urs if the natural period
(Ti ) of a stru tural system oin ides with the time period (T ) of the ex itation. In su h ase,
the stru ture with same natural period would experien e large amplitude vibrations and will
probably not survive those vibrations unless spe i ally designed to are of this eventuality.
The response of other stru tures with natural periods safely removed from the time period
of the ex itation is not so alarming as the re eptivity of these stru tures at the frequen y
(1=T ) of the applied loading is low.
Qui k Assessment of Response

The dynami ex itation shown in Fig. 4 ontains waveform of only one frequen y (1=T ). In
general dynami loads omprise of several frequen y omponents. Naturally, the response of
dierent stru tures with dierent natural periods (or, frequen ies) to these multi-frequen y
dynami ex itations will also be dierent depending on the extent of tuning between dierent
pairs of natural period and time periods of waveforms in the applied dynami loads. Typ-

T3
Maximum Response

T2

Force

T1

time

T1

T2

T3
Natural Period

Figure 5: The on ept of response spe trum

i ally, in earthquake ground motions, the frequen ies in the dynami ex itation an range
from 0.5{25.0 Hz. Thus, it an be a very tedious exer ise to al ulate the maximum vibration response of a stru tural system to the applied ex itation. The response of a stru tural
system is governed by several waveforms in the applied ex itation with frequen ies in the
lose vi inity of the natural frequen y of the stru tural system. The required maximum
response an be omputed in a routine manner by solving the governing dierential equation
of motion for the vibration problem. This an be a very tedious, even if a straight forward,
exer ise. In order to simplify this and for a qui k assessment of maximum ee t of a applied
dynami load on a stru ture a graphi al tool, known as the response spe trum, is used. In
development of this tool, a set of dierent stru tures (or, os illators with dierent natural
periods (Ti )) is sele ted. The vibration response for ea h os illator of this set is al ulated
for the applied dynami load. The absolute maximum value of the response of an os illator
is plotted with respe t to its natural period as shown in Fig. 5. The urve resulting from
joining these points on the graph is known as the response spe trum . Now the maximum
response of any stru ture with natural period within the range of urve an be easily read
from this graph. The response spe trum method is very onvenient for a qui k estimation
of the maximum response of a stru tural system to an applied dynami ex itation and is
invariably used in all preliminary design al ulations.
Epilogue

This is an extremely simplied presentation of the basi on epts of the dynami s of stru tures on entrating on bare essentials only. Several issues ompli ate the a tual vibration
analysis and a more rigorous, mathemati al treatment is ne essary to deal with those issues.
It is always desirable to seek an expert opinion on the dynami behaviour of stru tures at
the planning stage itself. This ould lead to a onsiderable savings as against trying to make
a design onform to a eptable vibration performan e levels at a later stage.