12.3 • VIBRATIONS IN MECHANICAL SYSTEMS 533
For damped mechanical systems driven by a periodic input F (t), the general
solution involves a transient part that vanishes as t -+ +oo, and a steady
state part that is periodic. We find the transient part of the solution u,. (t) by
solving the homogeneous differential equation
mu;: (t) + cUI. (t) + kU,.. (t) = o.
This homogeneous equation has the characteristic equation m).^2 +CA+ k = 0,
-c ± ./Cl -4mk
and its roots are ). =
2
m The coefficients m, c, and k are all
positive, and there are three cases to consider.
Case 1 If Cl - 4mk > 0, then the roots are real and distinct, and because the
inequality .,/ c^2 - 4mk < c holds, it follows that the roots ). 1 and ). 2 are negative
real numbers. Thus, for this case, we have
Case 2 If c^2 - 4mk = 0, then the roots are real and equal and ). 1 = A2 = A,
where A is a negative real number. Again, for this case we find that
Case 9 If c^2 - 4mk < 0, then the roots are complex and ). = -a± /3i, where a
and /3 are positive real numbers, and it follows that
In all three cases, the homogeneous solution u,. (t) decays to 0 as t-+ +oo.
We obtain the steady state solution Up (t) by representing Up (t) by its
Fourier series, substituting u; (t), u; (t), and Up (t) into t he nonhomogeneous
differential equation, and solving the resulting system for the Fourier coefficients
of Up (t). The general solution to Equation (12-18) then becomes
U (t) = U,. (t) +Up (t).
- EXAMPLE 12.4 Find the general solution to U" (t) + 2U' (t) + U (t) = F (t),
where F (t) is given by the Fourier series F (t) = E
1
n=I (Zn - 1)^2 cos [(2n - 1) t].
Solution First, we solve Uf: (t) + ZU/. (t) +Un (t) = 0 for the transient solution.
The characteristic equation is X^2 + 2). + 1 = 0, which bas a double root).= - 1.
Hence