Mechanical Vibrations and Acoustics

What this page covers

This unit sits in the Engineering Mechanics strand of Mechanical engineering. It is mostly mind maps, with a few flashcard decks and flowcharts. There are no quizzes here, so the practice comes from the flashcards and from testing yourself against the maps.

Where to start

Begin with the basics. The mind maps Mechanical Vibration and Fundamentals of Vibration introduce oscillating elastic bodies, linear and nonlinear systems, and the principle of superposition. Then read Vibrations, which sets out terminology, damped and undamped systems, and viscous damping.

Next, move to forced motion. Vibrations 2 covers forced vibration on single-degree-of-freedom systems, including the homogeneous and particular solutions and the response of an undamped system to harmonic forcing.

Going further

1. Damping in Structures looks at damping models, Rayleigh proportional damping and the damped eigenvalue problem.
2. Modal Analysis covers undamped free vibrations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and orthogonality of eigenvectors.
3. Time-Marching Solution Methods compares explicit and implicit methods and looks at stability for one-degree and multi-degree systems.
4. Aeroacoustics turns to sound, aircraft noise and longitudinal wave motion in an elastic medium.

Using maps and flashcards together

Read a map first, then close it and try to rebuild its branches from memory. Next, use the flashcard decks to check the detail. The deck Vibrations covers spring force, energy, equivalent mass and damped natural frequency. The deck Ch 8: System Analysis in the Time Domain uses fill-in-the-blank cards on free and forced response. The flowchart Mechanical Vibrations helps with multiple degree-of-freedom systems and rotating shafts on flexible supports.

Next step

Pick the map that matches what you are studying now, work through it with the flashcards, and then make your own summary of the topic.