ME-475

Mechanical Vibrations
Fall 2016

Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Engineering and Technology Lahore

Lecture 17

Last Time:

Free vibrations of 2dof Undamped systems

Today:

Lagranges Equations
Examples of free vibrations of 2dof Undamped systems

[New Topic]

Lagranges Equations

What are Lagranges Equations?

This topic should be better called Lagranges way of deriving the equations
of motion
Lagranges Equations provide an approach that if you follow correctly will
produce the EOMs (the differential equations that govern the time evolution
of your system)
To conclude: yet another way of obtaining the EOMs for a system

Lagranges Equations rely on (or bring into the picture the concept of)
generalized coordinates (GCs)

GCs a set of variables that you introduce to define the state of the system

These variables completely describe the configuration of your system

These variables therefore depend on time (in a dynamic system)

[Cntd.]

Lagranges Equations

How do Lagranges Equations look like for a system with p GCs?

Nomenclature:

[Cntd.]

Lagranges Equations

An equivalent form of the Lagranges Equations is

The function L above is called the Lagrangian:

For a system of p generalized coordinates, one gets a set of p equations:

The tricky part

is getting Qj
5

[Getting the Generalized Forces Qj]

Lagranges Equations

Question: What type of forces are present in a system?

Conservative forces and/or moments arising from springs and gravity

Nonconservative forces such as damping forces

You are in trouble, need to compute differential work to figure out Qj

Nonconservative excitation forces and/or moments

They are automatically captured in the expression of U (see previous slides) and
therefore percolate the EOMs with no further intervention

You are in trouble again, need to compute differential work to figure out Qj

You will need to figure out the differential work produced by all the
nonconservative forces and moments acting upon the system
In equation form: