Numerical simulation along with the experimental work for an underdamped oscillator using fourth order Runge–Kutta method. An undergraduate experiment

Abstract

Experiments based on oscillatory motion are an essential part of the curricula for students of physics and engineering in their undergraduate studies, such as the determination of spring constant for a well-known classical oscillator i.e., spring-mass system. Moreover, it is important for students to understand the physics of damped oscillators because, in real-world scenarios, a system involving oscillations cannot be completely analysed without understanding conditions of damped oscillations i.e., underdamped, overdamped, and critical damped. In this work, we design a computational physics lab for the simulation of the underdamped oscillator using an Excel spreadsheet by employing 4th order Runge–Kutta method. Further, we construct a simple experimental setup to observe the damped oscillation and obtaindata for the underdamped system. Final analysis was based on comparison between the experimental data and the numerically estimated data.