Experiment 6: Coupled Harmonic Oscillator.

Introduction:

In a periodic system, the number of vibration frequencies is generally equal to the number of degrees of freedom, which in turn is the minimum number of co-ordinates needed to completely describe its motion. For example, a single pendulum that is constrained to pivot in one plane can have its position specified by a single coordinate (usually angular displacement from the vertical) and has only one natural frequency of vibration. A spring that can pivot around its attachment point has at least two degrees of freedom and therefore two vibration frequencies. The most interesting (and useful) examples of this type are systems with several oscillators that are coupled together. The detailed description of the behavior of such oscillators is described in the link below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to view the file with the description of coupled harmonic oscillators

 

References and useful links:

 

The above link has been reproduced from the course material at

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/315/Waves.pdf

 

One may also see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode#Example_.E2.80.94_normal_modes_of_coupled_oscillators

 

Developed and maintained by: Satyajit Banerjee, Pabitra Mandal and Gorky Shaw

Click here to download the step-by-step instructions video demonstration.

Click here to download the program to run on your computer locally offline (Recommended)

 Procedure for downloading and running programs offline:

· To download the programs, right click on the link above and choose ‘save target as’, or, ‘save link as’ depending on the browser.

· Save the ‘.zip’ file to any directory on your PC.

· Extract the ALL contents of the .zip file to the SAME folder.

· Double click on the file “coupled_pendulum.exe” to start executing the program.

· After this, perform the experiment as demonstrated in the video instructions provided in the link below.