Teaching Vibration Analysis Using Symbolic Computation Software

Abstract

This paper presents a general approach to modelling and learning vibration analysis for simple beams using symbolic computation software. The emphasis here is on the fact that a complete solution of the beam vibrations problem, for different boundary conditions and arbitrary forcing functions, is made very simple by using symbolic computation software. The heart of the procedure is to convert the beam vibration problem into a system of simultaneous algebraic linear equations and then use symbolic computation software to solve it. The analysis here also shows how to obtain models suitable to design controllers for flexible systems.