ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the hardware available for vibration testing and the methods used to identify system parameters, such as natural frequencies and damping ratios. Vibration can be regarded as a subset of dynamics, in which a system subjected to restoring forces oscillates about an equilibrium position. Two different types of excitations cause a system to vibrate: initial excitation and external excitation. The vibration of a system caused by non-zero initial excitations, including initial displacements or initial velocities, is known as free vibration. The chapter also introduces the free vibration of Coulomb damped systems, in which energy is dissipated via dry friction. It considers the forced vibration of systems with rotating eccentric masses and systems with harmonically moving supports. The chapter covers topics such as logarithmic decrement and bandwidth, both of which can be used to estimate the widely-used viscous damping model. It discusses the design of vibration suppression systems, including vibration isolators and vibration absorbers.
