Experiment 5:

Harmonic Oscillator: Part 2, Physical

Pendulum

Name: Krishna Vijayakumar

Date: 11/26/14
Section: Wednesday 9am
TA: David Chester
Lab Partners: Ritvik Kulshrestha.

Purpose and Introduction:

The purpose of the experiment is to study the different forms of damped

oscillations. Furthermore, we look into driven oscillations and use certain techniques
to find the resonant frequencies associated with that oscillatory system. The
experimental setup includes a physically pendulum made of aluminum, damping
magnets, A wave driver, a rotation sensor, A ruler and a string. The experiment was
setup as shown in Figure 1

Figure 1: Shows the experimental setup with the pendulum body of the physical
pendulum, The damping magnets, the rotation sensor and the wave driver. Initially
the damping magnets are not used in order to study the system when it is
undamped. But are later placed on the sides of the pendulum to induce damping in
order to study damping of the system.

First, the magnets are left aside and an initially, undamped, oscillatory motion is
recorded by DAQ. Once we have an initial run of the undamped oscillatory motion,

we place the magnets at either sides of the pendulum, ensuring that the pendulum
body is at the center of the distance between the two magnets. We then proceed to
record the oscillatory motion for multiple values of separation between the two
magnets. We ensure that the separation does not exceed 50mm, and we bring the
magnets closer together for each measurement. We do so in order to find the point
of critically damped oscillation and eventually over damped oscillation. Essentially
we try to vary the damping constant by inducing greater magnetic flux in the
aluminum pendulum body, which induces greater magnitudes of eddy currents and
hence slows the pendulum down. By varying the damping constant we can obtain
underdamped, critically damped and over damped scenarios with ease. We then
proceed to calculate frequency for the undriven oscillatory motions by using the
time stamps. We find the time change per cycle of oscillation, which we know is T
the time period. We then find the inverse of the time period of that oscillation to
determine the frequency since

1
=f
T
Then we proceed to find the resonance by making use of the wave driver and
inducing a driven oscillator. We vary the frequency of the driven oscillator and
simultaneously plot a Lissajous graph. Since the Lissajous graph shows us the
behavior of a complex wave, we can infer through symmetry that the wave is at
resonance when a symmetrical figure such as an ellipse or circles is seen on the
plot. We record this frequency, which is the resonant frequency, at which the
Lissajous plot shows an ellipse and also record the value of the frequencies slightly
greater and slightly lesser than the resonant frequency. This is done to compare our
Lissajous plot at resonance with the plot when it is not at resonance. However,

through the course of the experiment we come to see that we can calculate the
Quality factor Q in three different ways.
The first method involves calculating Tau. Tau is the time taken for the oscillation to
decay by a factor of 1/e. It is calculated by using
\\
Once we obtain a value of tau from the damped oscillator, we use the resonance

frequency we obtained from the Lissajous plot to calculate

r , which is given by

r =2 f r
Where

f r is the resonant frequency. Using tau and resonant angular velocity to

obtain Q by using the following equation

1
Q= r
2
Another method to determine Q is by using the ratio of angular velocities for the
resonant damped driven oscillator and the undamped oscillator. As Q gets greater
than one, the ratio of the resonant angular velocity and the undamped angular
velocity gets closer to one. This can be expressed in the following equation

r
=
0

1+

1
Q2

The third method to find Q is more elaborate. We find 10 values of amplitude for 10
different values of frequencies of which one is the resonant frequency and use
these values to obtain . Once we plot the graph of the amplitudes vs
frequencies we obtain a Lorrentian curve. We use this Lorrentian curve to obtain the

value of , which is the difference between the two values of which are

1
2

times the value of the resonant angular velocity. Therefore the ratio of the
difference between the values and the undamped angular velocity is another
method by which we can measure the value of Q.

Q=

But for this method is used only when Q is small.

Procedure:
We begin the experiment by setting up the experiment to measure the undamped
undriven oscillation of the system in order to hold it as a reference frame for future
analysis and to calculate the angular velocity when there is no damping force or
driving force present. We placed a photogate at equilibrium postion of the aluminum
pendulum in order to start all the oscillations from this point in order to maintain
consistency and eliminate error. We took this point to be the point of maximum
displacement. It is ideally at the point of no displacement but for this experiment,
due to special hindrance, we placed it at the maximum point of displacement and
started all our oscillations from there. Once we had the data for the undriven
undamped oscillation we continue on to find the oscillatory motion of underdamped,
critically damped, and over damped situations. This is done by placing the magnets
around the aluminum pendulum body in such a way that the distance between the
aluminum body and either magnet is the same. This helps us vary the value of b
and hence control the amount the pendulum is damped. Our aim however is to

specifically find the critically damped oscillatory point and the distance of between
magnets at that point and compare it to the other two situations. Therefore we
employ a trial and error method and repeat the experiment several times to obtain
the exact difference between the magnets which gives us a specific value of b (the
damping constant) when the rate decay in energy of the oscillator is maximum.
Once we find the three different damping scenarios we plot them on a graph to
display our results. We must note that the critically damped condition only occurs
for a particular value of b but the overdamped and underdamped scenarios occur
for values greater than and lesser than that value, respectively. Additionally, we
determine Tau by using the data of the underdamped oscillatory motion. We move
on to the next phase of the experiment which is where we hope to use the wave
driver to calculate the resonant angular frequency and hence the resonant angular
velocity in order to determine the various values of Q. Here, again, we employ the
method of trial and error to find a value of resonant frequency. But in order to hold a
frame of reference we obtain data and observe the plot on Capstone simultaneously
to determine whether we are close to or far away from the resonant frequency when
we vary the frequency. We plot a graph known as the Lissajous graph to confirm
whether we are at resonance or not. This curve is a parametrized curve is depicted
by a perfect circle at resonance but is a tilted or skewed circle for every other value.
We obtain the resonant frequency through this method and take the radians vs
voltage graph for two other values of frequency, one greater than the resonance
frequency and the other lesser than the resonant frequency. This is done so in order
to confirm that this is in fact resonance and display how the Lissajous plots look
when the system is not in resonance. We obtain the value of resonant frequency
and determine the resonant angular velocity. At this point we can obtain the quality

factor Q using the first method previously described by using equation 1. We

proceed to determine the value of Q using the ratio between the undamped angular
velocity and the resonant damped angular velocity by calculating . Once both the
values of Q are calculated we reach the final phase of the experiment. In order to
determine the third value of Q, we use the Lorrentian curve of Amplitude vs angular
frequency for ten different points of frequency and amplitudes. We make sure that
one of these values for amplitude and angular velocity is the resonant values. This
helps us determine , which is the difference between the two values of which

are

1
2 times the value of the maximum value or resonant value of angular

velocity. We get the value of and use equation 3 to determine the final value of
Q. We compare the three values of Q and determine which value is more trust
worthy and what merit each one has.
Experimental analysis: