The Coupled Pendulum Experiment In this lab you will briefly study the motion of a simple pendulum, after which you will couple two pendulums and study the properties of this system. 1. Introduction to the Software The experimental apparatus consists of two, nearly identical, simple pendulums, as well as springs that can be used to provide a coupling force between the two. Each of the pendulums has a potentiometer, which is used as a position transducer, at their fulcrum and both of them are connected to a PC which is equipped to measure their position as a function of time. The software used to perform this data acquisition is located on the desktop of the lab PC titled The Coupled Pendulum Experiment. Double-click this icon, and allow time for the software to initialize. Once the software has opened, you ll see two tabs located at the top of the front panel; Introduction and Data Acquisition. The introduction tab holds information regarding the process of data acquisition used for this experiment, as well as Calibrate Data Acquisition button; it is important that you press this button with the pendulums at rest, at the bottom of their swing, before continuing on to the next tab. After having finished with the introduction tab, one will find five main controls on the Data Acquisition tab. The first of which is a numeric field labelled Time to Collect (s) this is where you ll entered the amount of time you would like data to be acquired for when the Start Data Collection button is pressed. If for any reason would like to stop the data collection during a run, you may press the Stop Data Collection button; this will allow the data that has already been recorded to be saved. Once data has finished being acquired you may press the Save Pendulum Position Data button or the Save Power Spectrum FFT Data button to save the required data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.. The Power Spectrum Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) As data is acquired in the lab, the software used in the lab continuously performs a Power Spectrum FFT on the data that has already been acquired. This transforms the wave form acquired by the data acquisition card into the frequency domain. Peaks on the plot of this transformed function correspond to the oscillatory modes of the pendulum s motion. This operation is only performed on the data from the left pendulum, and is most important when the pendulums are coupled together; when the left pendulum swings free the FFT will provide one peak, which corresponds to the frequency at which it is swinging. The outcome of this operation when the pendulums coupled is explained further on in this instruction. 3. The Simple Pendulum During this part of the experiment you will determine the damping constant associated with each pendulum s oscillatory motion, and the distance between their centers of gravity and their fulcrums; the pendulum s effective length. One may write the following equation of motion for a simple pendulum in the absence of friction: 1
Where θ 0 is the angle from which the pendulum is released, g is the acceleration due to gravity, l is the effective length of the pendulum, and t is time. This equation neglects any sort of damping, but in the real world we know that there is air resistance, as well as friction in the bearings located at the top of each pendulum. Please note that air resistance and bearing friction cause very different forms of damping. Air resistance is a form of viscous damping, which means that the damping force that acts on the pendulum is proportional to its velocity; this is the cause most often discussed in physics texts on damped harmonic oscillators. The damping caused by the bearings is known as dry friction ; the friction in the bearings is constant, much like that observed on a surface with a normal force and a coefficient of kinetic friction. For further reference, please see Viscous-vs-Dry.pdf located on the lab PC s desktop. It is important to note that although each of these two sources of damping cause the pendulums oscillatory amplitude to decrease over time, they do so in different ways; viscous damping causes exponential decay, while dry friction causes amplitude to decay linearly. For example, one may write the following equation of motion for the case of viscous damping: Where B is the coefficient of viscous friction In the case of viscous friction, one may make observe the following plot: Figure 1.0 Plot of exponential decay due to viscous friction In the case of dry friction, one may write the following equation of motion, and plot as shown below: Where a is the constant coefficient of linear decay
Procedure: Figure.0 Plot of linear decay due to dry friction 1. Perform trial runs to estimate how long it takes for the pendulum to decay from a certain initial position θ 0. Record this time in your lab notebook.. Start with θ 0 from step one, and record data for as long as necessary; be sure to save this data to an Excel spreadsheet. 3. Scroll through the data that you ve received in Excel, copy and paste every point that corresponds to a local peak into a new column. Plot these points versus their respective times; they should fit nicely to the bounding function describing the damping in the system. 4. Determine the dominant type of damping in the system, and its appropriate damping parameters; record these in your lab notebook. 5. Plot t (time) versus πn, where n is an integer corresponding to the t-values from step three. To clarify, the time of the first peak would correspond to n=0, the second to n=1 and so on. The slope of this will be equal to. Also use this data to calculate and record the period of your pendulums motion. 6. Extract a value for l, then measure the pendulum and compare the values. Determine why the two values are different as well as the proper way to calculating the true value of l. 7. Repeat steps 1-6 for the other pendulum; record all results. 4. The Coupled Pendulum Now that you ve studied each pendulum individually, and determined that they are similar, it s almost time to couple them. First you must determine the spring constants of the springs that you ll be using. You have been given a set of springs, some weights, a measuring device, and the knowledge of Hooke s Law ( ); find k. Once you ve determine the spring constants for the springs that you ll be using you should familiarize yourself with the lab apparatus. It is important that the pendulums swing in the same plane; therefore they ve been precision machined to help ensure this. When connecting the coupling spring, remember that it important to couple the pendulums as close to the position of their centers of gravity as possible. The following is a diagram of the coupled pendulum system: 3
Figure 3.0 Diagram of the coupled pendulum system In coupling the pendulums you re creating a mechanical system in which there are two natural modes of oscillation, each with a characteristic frequency. Any un-driven motion in the system will be a linear combination of these two natural modes, with the following frequencies: Now you re ready to study the system s behaviour. The best way to do this is to examine various initial conditions of θ 1 and θ at time t=0, and observe the systems behaviour when the pendulums are released. There are three cases of initial conditions that we ll use to observe our systems behaviour, they are as follows: The beating case shows a phenomenon that occurs in many areas of physics, known as beating. In optics for example, beating occurs when two light waves exist at the same point in space and interfere with each other. The mathematics behind this can be derived using a few simple trig identities, the general idea being: $ Acos(" a t) + Acos(" b t) = Acos " #" ' $ a b & t) cos " + " ' a b & t) % ( % ( with the first term being the low-frequency beat envelope, and the second the higher frequency carrier oscillations occurring within the beat envelope. In our case the parallel and anti-parallel are interfering with each other. When data is acquired in the lab, the Power Spectrum FFT plot should reflect peaks at these natural modes, the lower of which will be ω a. By noting the frequencies at which these peaks occur, one may calculate the frequencies involved in the beating case. 4
Procedure: Note: All measured and calculated values must include uncertainties! 1. Using the above equations, l determined earlier, and the spring constants found before coupling the pendulums, calculate ω a and ω b.. Set-up and run the experiment for the parallel case. Record and save the data for this trial. Use this data to determine the frequency of oscillation for both pendulums. Write an explanation towards why ω b is not observed in this case. 3. Run the experiment again with the anti-parallel case. 4. Compare the frequencies observed in the parallel and anti-parallel cases with those calculated in step one. 5. Run the experiment again using the beating case. Note the trends observed on the plot in your lab notebook. Save your data, including the Power Spectrum FFT data, and use it to determine the beat frequency as well the pendulums individual oscillatory frequencies; record all calculations and plots in lab notebook. This may be done by performing the following calculations: Beat frequency = " a #" b Carrier frequency = " a + " b 6. Compare the experimentally observed frequencies from step five with those calculated from the above equation. 5