Abstract

Mechanical vibration is taught to undergraduates as if it were a simple science. The mass-on-a-spring, uni-axial vibration of a rod, viscous damping, modal analysis – all these are the bread and butter of vibration science. But real vibrating systems just don’t behave like this. There are pitfalls in even the simplest cases and some of these will be demonstrated: a tuning fork; a bottle of coke; a bending beam; a turbocharger wheel. All of these systems behave counter-intuitively. The “simple” examples above have simple explanations, and wouldn’t it be great if all engineering problems were simple?

The talk will also touch on the methods presently used to control vibration from underground railways. Some very counter-intuitive theoretical predictions will be presented and these were widely dismissed as rubbish - until recently when some measurements were made …