Virtual Vibrations Laboratory

Abstract Lacking a physical vibrations lab, a series of virtual experiments were developed and deployed to enhance students’ understanding of topics covered in the Study of Vibrations course. MATLAB and SIMULINK were utilized to simulate response of single-degree and two-degree freedom systems to free vibrations, damped vibrations, harmonic forced vibrations, and transient unit step excitations. Using the scope and power spectral density windows in SIMULINK, clear understanding of stable and unstable response of the system for different system parameters and excitations were examined. Beating phenomenon, together with system resonance to harmonic excitations were realized. Phase diagram together with instability, and stability of the response along with limit cycles were simulated and analyzed. Response of nonlinear systems to different initial conditions in free vibrations together with forced harmonic and transient excitations were simulated and analyzed. These experiments promote functional understanding by design of important concepts and theories in Vibrations. Also, they provide for an effective economical means to expose additional students to the instrumentation of modeling and simulation-based laboratories. These experiments and their ensuing uses will be presented in this paper along with corresponding students’ learning outcomes.