Vibrations of Structures

Module I: Vibrations of Strings and Bars

Lesson 8: Modal Analysis: Approximate Methods - I
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Rayleigh Method
3. Rayleigh-Ritz Method
4. Ritz Method
Keywords: Approximate modal analysis, Non-uniform bar, Rayleigh quo-
tient, Ritz expansion, Admissible functions
Modal Analysis:
Approximate Methods - I
1 Introduction
Exact solutions of the modal analysis problem are usually too cumbersome
to obtain. In such situations, approximate methods can provide suciently
accurate results to serve the purpose.
2 Rayleigh Method
Rayleighs method can be used to estimate the lowest (or fundamental)
frequency of a self-adjoint (conservative) continuous system.
Consider a bar of length l, density , having an area of cross-section A
and Youngs modulus E undergoing axial vibrations. The total mechanical
energy of the system comprising the kinetic and potential energies is given
by
E = T +V =
1
2
_
l
0
Au
2
,t
(x, t) dx +
1
2
_
l
0
EAu
2
,x
(x, t) dx. (1)
Assuming that the system is vibrating in one of its eigenmodes, we can write
the solution as u(x, t) = U(x) cos t, where U(x) is an eigenfunction of the
system, and the corresponding circular natural frequency. Substituting this
2
solution in (1) yields
E =
_
1
2

2
_
l
0
AU
2
dx
_
sin
2
t +
_
1
2
_
l
0
EAU
2
dx
_
cos
2
t. (2)
Now, E given by (2) is a constant for a non-trivial solution if and only if the
amplitudes of the kinetic and potential energy terms are equal, i.e.,
1
2

2
_
l
0
AU
2
dx =
1
2
_
l
0
EAU
2
dx

2
=
_
l
0
EAU
2
(x) dx
_
l
0
AU
2
(x) dx
:= R[U(x)]. (3)
The ratio R[U(x)] dened in (3) is know as the Rayleigh quotient. If the
eigenfunction U(x) is known exactly, one can obtain the exact circular eigen-
frequency from (3). However, if the eigenfunction is unknown, one can still
use (3) to determine the fundamental circular frequency through the mini-
mization problem

2
1
= min

U(x)U
R[

U(x)] = min

U(x)U
_
l
0
EA

U
2
(x) dx
_
l
0
A

U
2
(x) dx
, (4)
where the minimization is performed over the set U of all functions

U(x)
that satisfy all the geometric boundary conditions of the problem, and are
dierentiable at least up to the highest order of space-derivative present in
the energy integral. Such functions are known as admissible functions, and
can be easily constructed using polynomials, trigonometric functions, or other
elementary functions.
Assume the fundamental mode shape of longitudinal vibration of the bar
shown in Fig. 1 as F(x) = (x/l)

, where is a constant, and will be deter-

3
A
0
A
0
/4
A(x) = A
0
(1 x/2l)
2
l
x
u(x, t)
, E
Figure 1: A tapered circular bar
mined later. Computation of the numerator of the Rayleigh quotient in (3)
yields
_
l
0
EAF
2
(x) dx =
EA
0
l

2
4
(2 1)2 + 4(2 + 1)
(2 1)2(2 + 1)
, (5)
where it is required that > 1/2 for the denite integral in the above to
exist and be positive denite. Further, if < 1, then as x 0, F

(x) .
The denominator of the Rayleigh quotient yields
_
l
0
AF
2
(x) dx = A
0
l
(2 + 1)(2 + 2) + 4(2 + 3)
4(2 + 1)(2 + 2)(2 + 3)
. (6)
Therefore, the Rayleigh quotient is obtained as
R[F(x), ] =
E
l
(2
2
+ 3 + 2)(2
2
+ 5 + 3)
(2
2
+ 7 + 7)(2 1)
. (7)
We can now minimize R[F(x), ] with respect to , which yields 0.93,
and the fundamental circular frequency as
1
2.08303c/l. The exact solu-
tion is given by
exact
1
= 2.029c/l. It may be noted that the obtained shape
function F(x) after minimization cannot be used to determine the strain at
the xed end since F

(0) = . However, it gives the frequency estimate

4
within 3% of the exact value.
3 Rayleigh-Ritz Method
In Rayleigh-Ritz method, we consider the expansion of a mode shape in
terms of N linearly independent admissible functions U
i
(x), i = 1, 2, . . . , N
in the form
U(x) =
N

i=1

i
U
i
(x), (8)
where
i
are unknown constants which are to be chosen suitably to minimize
the Rayleigh quotient. Substituting (8) in the Rayleigh quotient (3) leads to

2
=

N
i,j=1

j
k
ij

N
i,j=1

j
m
ij
=

T
K

T
M
, (9)
where
k
ij
=
_
l
0
EAU

i
U

j
dx, and m
ij
=
_
l
0
AU
i
U
j
dx, (10)
is the vector of the
i
, and T in the superscript indicates transposition.
Now the minimization condition of the Rayleigh quotient can be written as

p
_

T
K

T
M
_
= 0, p = 1, 2, . . . , N,

T
M
_

T
K

T
K
_

T
M

_
= 0,
K
_

T
K

T
M
_
M = 0,
(K
2
M) = 0 (using (9)). (11)
Thus, the extremization condition for Rayleighs quotient (formed using a -
nite expansion) for a continuous system leads to the eigenvalue problem of a
5
nite dimensional system. The eigenvalue problem (11) can now be solved to
determine the rst N approximate eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The eigen-
functions are then obtained using the eigenvectors in (8). However, the error
is not uniform over all the eigenvalues. Convergence of the desired eigenval-
ues needs to be checked by increasing the number of terms in (8).
4 Ritz Method
Ritzs idea of solution expansion can be used directly in the variational
formulation of the system dynamics to obtain the discretized equations of
motion of a continuous system.
Consider a bar in axial vibration. The variational formulation of the prob-
lem is given by

_
t
2
t
1
1
2
_
l
0
_
Au
2
,t
EAu
2
,x
_
dx dt = 0. (12)
Consider an approximate solution of the form
u(x, t) =
N

k=1
p
k
(t)H
k
(x) = H
T
p, (13)
where H = [H
1
(x), . . . , H
N
(x)]
T
is a vector of N linearly independent admis-
sible functions, and p = [p
1
(t), . . . , p
N
(t)]
T
is a vector of the corresponding
unknown coordinate functions. Substituting (13) in (12), we get

_
t
2
t
1
1
2
_
l
0
_
A p
T
HH
T
p EAp
T
H

H
T
p

dx dt = 0,

_
t
2
t
1
1
2
_
p
T
M p p
T
Kp

dx dt = 0, (14)
6
where
M =
_
l
0
AHH
T
dx, and K =
_
l
0
EAH

H
T
dx. (15)
The discrete equations of motion are obtained as
M p +Kp = 0. (16)
It may be observed from (15) that both M and K are symmetric. They
are also positive denite since A and EA are positive functions, and the
admissible functions chosen in the expansion (13) are linearly independent.
Consider the example of axial vibrations of the tapered bar shown in Fig. 1.
We can choose the admissible functions as
H
j
(x) =
x
l
_
1
x
2l
_
j1
, j = 1, 2, . . . , N, (17)
since the geometric boundary conditions, H
j
(0) = 0, are exactly satised.
However, as can be checked, the natural boundary conditions, H

j
(l) = 0,
are not satised. Considering only two admissible functions in the expansion
(13), and following the steps discussed above, (16) takes the form
A
0
l
_

_
2
15
7
80
7
80
33
560
_

_
_
p
1
p
2
_
+
EA
0
l
_

_
7
12
17
48
17
48
31
120
_

_
_
p
1
p
2
_
= 0. (18)
Assuming a modal solution p(t) = ke
it
, (18) yields the eigenvalue problem
[
2
M+K]k = 0, (19)
7
from which the characteristic equation is obtained as
81
7

4
394
c
2
l
2

2
+ 1455
c
2
l
2
= 0. (20)
The rst two approximate circular natural frequencies of longitudinal vibra-
tion are obtained from (20) as
R
1
= 2.053c/l and
R
2
= 5.462c/l. The exact
circular eigenfrequencies were obtained previously as
exact
1
= 2.029c/l, and

exact
2
= 4.913c/l. The eigenvectors are obtained from (19) as
k
1
=
_
1.0
1.475
_
, and k
2
=
_
1.0
1.505
_
. (21)
Using these eigenvectors, along with (17), in (13), we get the approximate
eigenfunctions as
U
1
(x) = H
T
k
1
=
x
l
+ 1.457
x
l
_
1
x
2l
_
, (22)
and U
2
(x) = H
T
k
2
=
x
l
1.505
x
l
_
1
x
2l
_
. (23)
It may be observed from the comparison in Fig. 2 that the rst mode shape
is determined reasonably accurately. However, the second mode shape is in
considerable error. For a better approximation of the second mode shape, one
must take more terms in the expansion (13). In general, the error in deter-
mination of the eigenfrequencies is less than that in the determination of the
eigenfunctions. Further, the eigenfrequencies are always overestimated. This
is expected since we are approximating an innite degrees of freedom system
by a nite degrees of freedom system, there by increasing the stiness of the
8
0.5 1
4
2
2
4
0.5 1
4
2
2
4
U
1
(x) U
2
(x)
x/l x/l
Ritz method
Exact solution
Figure 2: Comparison of rst two mode shapes from Ritz method and exact solution (Mode-
shapes normalized such that

l
0
AU
2
i
dx =

l
0
Adx)
system. The greatest advantage of the Ritz method is that only admissible
functions are required to be constructed for the solution expansion.
In the presence of external forces, the variational principle (12) reads
_
t
2
t
1
_
l
0
_

_
1
2
Au
2
,t

1
2
EAu
2
,x
_
+ q(x, t)u
_
dx dt = 0, (24)
where q(x, t) is the generalized force. Substituting the solution form (13)
in (24) and following the procedure presented in this section, we obtain the
discretized equation of motion with forcing as
M p +Kp = f(t),
where
f(t) =
_
l
0
q(x, t)H(x)dx.
9