On the Interpretation of the Vector Plots of Forced Vibrations of a Linear System with Viscous Damping

Abstract

SummaryA new method of analysing the response of linear systems to sinusoidal excitation, which avoids the assumptions of present methods, is developed in this paper. It enables one to obtain the eigenvalues and righthand eigenvectors of a system with viscous damping from the response of the system. If the inertia matrix of the system is known, the damping and stiffness matrices can also be obtained. No assumptions are made about the form of these matrices, and the method is not restricted to systems with only small amounts of damping.