Name: Memory Vegetables Game
Brand: nuclida
SKU: 118042
Price: 28.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.4 (189 reviews)

Mass Spring Damper Experiment

Admin
games

0 Sales

$ 12

live demo

Mass Spring Damper Experiment

May be copied with acknowledgement
(press escape to see experiment, F1 to return)

This experiment simulates a mass, ideal spring and friction.
Rather than mks units, the unit of distance is the pixel and of time the step.

For the mass:
F = ma
a = dspeed/dt

For the spring:
F = springconstant x distance

For the damper:
F = frict x speed

So:
a = (springconstant x distancestretched + frict x speed)/m

This is the formula in the step event for the mass, the rest length of the spring is 100
Step Event:
set variable vspeed relative to (springcon*(100-y) -frict*vspeed)/m

Questions
1. Try different values of spring constant, mass and friction
2. What is the resonant frequency in cycles per step or period in steps per cycle, (graph tick marks are every 100 steps)
3. What happens when you double mass or spring? Quadruple it?
4. Try different mass start positions, does the frequency change?
5. What is the minimum friction to prevent overshoot? This is called critical damping.
6. Try negative values. What happens, what does this mean?
7. Can you modify the program so that the springs anchor point moves up and down? Try different frequencies below and above the resonant frequency. See the effect of damping. This is what happens when car suspension travels on a corrugated road.
8. The mass spring damper is an analogue of an electronic tuned circuit. What do mass, spring, damper, speed and position correspond to?
9. The simulation divides a continuous process up into steps, this is an approximation which introduces errors. Normally the errors are small but the simulation becomes unstable for very high friction. Try friction = 0.5 mass = 0.25 spring = 0.01. Can you explain what is happening?