Vibrating motion in a viscous medium

Birtalan Etele-kos*
*Department of biomolecular physics

Introduction
The aim of this study was to record datas and study a specific, practical realization of a damped
mechanical vibration in a viscous medium, in order to determine whether:
1. the damping force is proportional to the speed;
2. in which way the damping relates to the form of the vibrating body (if detectable at all).
Vibration is a natural movement: in our environment almost all body performs oscillating motion
around an equilibrium position and the greatest importance from theoretical and practical view has the
simple harmonic motion, where the displacement is a harmonic function of time (sinusoidal or cosine).[1]
However, in case of real vibrations in addition to restoring forces, always acts a dissipative force as
well, which slows, dampes the vibration. (Such effect has simple friction, drag, but losses during the
spring deformation as well). The damping often depends on the body's speed. Mathematically simplest
to describe is the drag force proportional with velocity - approximation which holds for low speeds, but
at higher speeds the damping can be proportional to the square of the velocity.[2]
Discusion/ Results
The Cassy Lab[3] instrument,
which we utilised for our
measurements, originally was
intended to make visible for the
eye (to visibly demonstrate) that
the amplitude of the damped
oscillations decreases
exponentially with time.
Damped vibration was obtained
by the insertion of thin aluminum
plates ("skirts") of dimensions of
order of 10 cm, with various
shapes.
Figure 1. Sketch of the measuring equipment Analysis of the test data
suggests that in this simple
elastic damping vibration motion, damping increases as the
amplitudes decrease, so making possible to view the Figure 2. Comparison of the two plates
"exponential" decrease. We conducted a calculation in order
to check if the accuracy of the measurement apparatus permits the detection of differences between
the damping using different-shaped "skirts". Because the maximum relative error of 20% was found,
and the above differences are within the measurement error limit, this difference could not be detected.

Conclusion
Because the test data suggest that the damping increases as the amplitudes decrease, so making
possible to view the "exponential" decrease. This could also be interpreted as the damping force is
not proportional to the speed, but with a non-integer exponent of the speed, or - if we want to keep the
concept that damping force is proportional to the speed - the damping factor increases the amplitudes
decrease.
References: [1] John R. Taylor, Classical Mechanics-University Science Books, University of
Colorado, Boulder, 2005
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
[3] http://newton.phys.uaic.ro/data/pdf/manual_Cassy.pdf