Oscillations

Lesson plan

Vipin

Subject : Physics
Grade : 11

Engineering connection
Tuned mass dampers
Every skyscrappers sways with wind. On a breezy day, a skyscrapper can
sway upto three feet on either side. Such deflections, can cause discomfort
to the people sitting inside it, or if happens at a larger scale can even cause
structural failures. This problem is usually countered by heavy devices (like
collossal pendulums which can be seen in Taipei 101, Taiuwan )which ab-
sorbs the vibrations of the building, vibrate itself in a countering fashion
and eventually damping the oscilaltions of the building. Such devices are
called tuned mass dampers (TMD). One can see TMDs in other engineering
products such as automobiles, bridges, space crafts and wind turbines.

Session 1, 50 to 60 minutes
Restoring force, equilibrium position, amplitude etc.
Discussions on different types of oscillatory motions. Examples are drawn
from students from their daily life experiences. Swings, pendulums of old
clocks, springs etc.

Learning objectives
ˆ The student is able to identify oscillatory motion and distinguish it
from other type of motions.

ˆ The student is able to collaborate to experiment, collect data and arrive

at conclusions about the causes and defining features of oscillatory
motion.

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 ˆ The student is able to organize the conclusions and communicate with
the class about the findings.

ˆ The student is able to compare and contrast her findings with others.

Activity 1
Materials required:
Simple pendulum
helical spring or spring balance
slotted weights
stop watch.
Students work in groups. One set of groups is provided with a simple pendu-
lum set-up and another set is given a spring-mass system (a helical spring or
a spring balance).the syudents are given pendulums of different lengths, and
spring-mass systems with different masses. The students plan an experimen-
tal procedure to answer the following qualitative and quantitavie questions;

1. How did the motion start?

2. When the mass is not moving, where does it reside?

3. While the mass is in motion, is it passing through this position?

4. Does the mass come back after moving a certain distance from the rest
position? Does this returning point depend on the force with which
you pull the mass?

5. How much time it takes to complete 10 complete cycles? (The ques-

tion What is one full cycle? can be asnswered through group specific
intervensions of the facilitator).

6. From the above data, can you find the time taken to complete one full
cycle?

7. How many cycles does it complete in 1 minute?

8. From the above data, can you find how many cylces are completed in
a second?

Teacher actively involved in presentation, introduces technical terms such as

frequency, equilibrium point, amplitude etc. In addition, teacher refreshes
the idea of Hooke’s law in connection with the discussions with question no.
1. Qualititavie discussions about the relationship between frequency and time

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period. Consolidating the differences in time periods of different pendulums
and spring-mass systems, the class arrives at conclusion that larger the time
period, lesser the frequency.

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Day/ Session 2, 40 to 50 minutes
Engineering connection
Shock abosrbers
All automobiles are connected with shock absorbers which help absorbing
the shocks caused, when vehicles falls into pot holes and hit humps. A
restoring force is developed in the shock absorber which pulls the vehicle
back to equilibrium position.

Activity 2
Acceleration of simple harmonic oscillations
Pre-requisites
Free-body diagrams
Newton’s second law F = ma
The teacher starts with a discussion about Newton’s second law and that
the presence of a force always indicates the presence of an accleration. Also
teacher revises on free body diagrams by illustrating a few sample systems.

Learning objectives
ˆ The student able to understand that the acceleration of a simple har-
monic oscillator is opposite to displacement.

ˆ The student able to draw the free body diagram of the forces acting on
a displaced mass attached to a horizontal spring.

ˆ The student able to infer that the acceleration is opposite to displace-

ment.

ˆ Student able to derive a mathematical relation between acceleration

and displacement.

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Activity; Part 1
Materials required Mass attached to a horizontal spring.
A meter scale.
Paper and pencil.
medskip Students work in group and pulls the mass. The displacement is
measured using a meterscale. Students observe how quickly the mass goes
back to the equilibrium position. The process is repeated for larger and larger
displacements and students observes how violently the spring vibrates. The
student is guided to arrive at the conclusion that larger the displacement,
larger the restoring force and hence the acceleration. The student draws the
spring in equilibrium and displaced position and draws the free-body diagram
in both the situation to analyze the direction of forces.

Activity: Part 2
Deriving the equation for acceleration
Using the previous knowledge to Newton’s second law, teacher guides the
students to arrive at the equation for acceleration.

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Session 3
Mathematical description of oscillation
Learning objectives
ˆ The stdent able to mathematically represent a simple harmonic motion.

ˆ The student able to relate the mathematical representation to physical

motion.

ˆ The student able to do curve-fitting which is a standard procedure in

quantitative, empirical sciences.

ˆ The student able to show the amplitude from the graphical represen-
tation.

ˆ Demonstrate amplitude, frequency and number of cycles idea using a

graphing software such as Desmos.

Pre-requisites
Use of a graphing sheet

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 Figure 1

Plot graphs from two sets of data points.

Plotting from a mathematical function.

Activity 3
The teacher sets up a demonstration as shown in the figure. Students observe
with a worksheet. The instruction for the worksheet is given so as to give it
an output of form given in table 1.

Time Position
0 A
1 0
2 -A
3 0
4 A

Table 1

The teacher holds the mass at different positions such as mean position
and both the amplitudes. The amplitudes are measured based on a number
line caliberated between -A and +A. The student plots the data in table 1
which results in a sine wave form. Now a mathematical function of the form
Acos(ωt) is given such that when plotted, this function exactly lies on the
experimental data points. Thus student is able to get a hands on experience
the method of curve-fitting which is a standard procedure in experimental
sciences.

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Activity 3a
Materials required
A tablet/smart phone/computer
A free graphing software such as Desmos
medskip Feed the equation y = Acos(ωx) into the graphing tool, play around
for different numerical values for A and ω and record the observations.

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Session 4, 40 to 50 minutes
Activity 4
Learning objectives
ˆ Understand the periodicity concept mathematically and physically.

Pre-requisites
Trignometric identities

Periodicity
Connecting to previous activity, teacher discusses that in every 4 s, the mass
completes one full cycle. So the time period is 4 s. Generalizing on this, the
students work on the following research question;

ˆ For Acos(ωt) = Acosω(t + T ), what must be the minimum value of T ?

Based on the discussions and presentations, the class concludes that ωT =

2π. From this relation, further questions are generated such as;

ˆ What is the expression for angular frequency?

ˆ How is it related to frequency?

From here, the equation for the acceleration is revisited and found that the
acceleration is in fact inversely proportional to the time period. Smaller the
time period, larger the acceleration.

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Engineering challenge
Build a toy car with suspension set up. Test it over bumpy surfaces!