Damped Oscillations

 Fractional force, acting on a body opposite to the direction of its motion , is called
damping force.
 Damping force reduces the velocity and the Kinetic Energy of the moving body.
 Damping or dissipative forces generally arises due to the viscosity or friction in
the medium and are non conservative in nature.
 When velocities of body are not high, damping force is found to be proportional
to velocity v of the particle i.e.,
Fd=-γv (27)
where, γ is the damping constant.
 If we take damping into consideration for an oscillator then oscillator experiences
(i) Restoring Force :- F=-kx
(ii) Damping Force :- Fd=-γv
where, x is the displacement of oscillating system and v is the velocity of this
displacement.
 Thus equation of motion of damped harmonic oscillator is

where, b=(γ/2m) and ω2=k/m

 Solution of above equation is of the form
x=Ae-btcos(ω't+φ) (29)
where,
ω'=√(ω2-b2) (30)
is the angular frequency of the damped oscillator.
 In equation 29 , x is a function of time but it is not a periodic function and
because of the damping factor e-rt this function decreases continuously with time.
Logarithmic Decrement

We have seen that the damping of a damped oscillating system essentially depends on the

parameter , b=(γ/2m) . However, to determine the amount of damping in a system, a

convenient way is to measure the rate at which the amplitude of oscillation ‘dies away’.
Thus if ao and a1represent two successive amplitudes of oscillation, separated by one
period (See Fig.6.4), and T is the time period, then from Eqn. (29)

We can thus see that the ratio of any two successive amplitudes, say, and ,
will be the same given by
The factor ebT,which is the same for the ratio of any two consecutive amplitudes, is
called decrement and is often denoted by d.

Thus the decrement

The logarithm of this ratio, of any two successive amplitudes, is called the logarithmic
decrement. It is usually denoted by and is given by

In actual practice, we generally observe ao and the nth amplitude an. The ratio

If we choose n = 10,20,30,40 etc and plot ,(for these values of n), versus n ,we
should get a straight line. The slope, of this straight line, would determine the logarithmic
decrement λ. This is considered as an accurate method of finding the logarithmic
decrement and the damping constant.

Relaxation Time

There is another way of expressing the damping effect in a damped oscillator. This is
done in terms of the time in which the amplitude of the oscillator decays to 1/e of its
original value. This time is called the relaxation time for the given damped oscillator.

If a(t) represents the amplitude of a damped oscillator at a time t, then the amplitude of
oscillation after an internal of time τ, given by (t + τ), can be written as
But . Dividing the two expressions, we get

Clearly, the ratio reduces to 1/e for b = 1.Hence the relaxation time is inversely
related to the damping constant b i.e.

Q-factor
Quality factor or Q factor is a dimensionless parameter that describes how under-
damped an oscillator. Higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy loss relative to the stored
energy of the oscillator.
The other common equivalent definition for Q is the ratio of the energy stored in the
oscillating resonator to the energy dissipated per cycle by damping processes: