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Pendulum Example PDF
Pendulum Example PDF
Pendulum Example PDF
Pendulum Example
Consider the two-dimensional dynamics problem of a planar body of mass m
swinging freely under the influence of gravity. As shown, the body is pinned at
point O and has a mass center located at C. The angle θ defines the angular
position coordinate.
• O
L
•C
where I O is the mass moment of inertia of the body about point O and L is the
distance between points O and C. This gives the following equation of motion
d 2
K sin 0 (1)
dt 2
where K = mgL/IO . Notice that this ODE is nonlinear (why?), but for the case of
small oscillations we can make the assumption sinθ ≈θ to get the linearized
equation of motion
d 2
K 0 (2)
dt 2
Note that the solution to the linearized equation is given by
Next we wish to solve the nonlinear equation (1). Following our standard
procedures to set up a numerical MATLAB solution, we let x , x to
1 2
x1 x2
x K sin x
2 1
0.5
-0.5
-1
-1.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Time(t)
For the case with the small initial angle (0) /10 (radians) 18 (degrees) , the
linear and nonlinear results are about the same. However, for the case
(0) / 3(radians) 60 (degrees) the two solutions show increasing differences
as time goes on. The linearized responses have a fixed period and frequency for
this free oscillation case, independent of the initial conditions, while the nonlinear
response shows dependency on the initial conditions.