Natural Frequency and Resonance

What is a natural frequency? What is resonance?
The definition of these items is:
 Natural Frequency: All physical structures have natural frequencies. These are the frequencies at
which the structure will tend to vibrate when subjected to certain external forces. These
frequencies are dependent on the way mass and stiffness are distributed within the structure.
 Resonance: Resonance is a phenomenon in which a dynamic force drives a structure to vibrate
at its natural frequency. When a structure is in resonance, a small force can produce a large
vibration response.
What does this mean in practice? When a dynamic force is applied to a physical object, it will vibrate.
When a force is applied at the object’s natural frequency, it goes into resonance, and a higher amplitude
vibration response is created.
An analogy with a guitar may help. Pluck a string on a guitar and it will make the same sound each time.
That is the guitar string vibrating at its natural frequency! The natural frequency is a property of the
object itself: it will always vibrate at the same frequency independent of how hard or where it is
plucked. A force had to be applied to cause the string to resonate and be heard.
All physical objects have multiple natural frequencies and can resonate under the right conditions.
Sometimes the natural frequencies are excited by external forces acting on the object, which creates
vibration. These vibrations may be so small that they cannot be seen by the human eye. Sometimes,
they are quite large and easily observable as seen in Figure 1.
Resonance can cause discomfort (vibration in steering column caused by resonance) or be catastrophic
(resonance in airplane wing leads to failure)
Single Degree of Freedom Example
A mass-spring-damper system is a simplified representation that is useful for understanding natural
frequencies and resonant behavior in real world objects.
This is referred to as a Single Degree of Freedom (SDOF) system, because it has only one natural
frequency/mode of vibration. A real world object has many natural frequencies.
A diagram of a mass-spring-damper system is shown in Figure 2.
The system consists of:
 Mass (m)
 Stiffness (k)
 Damping (c)
The natural frequency (wn) is defined by Equation 1.

The natural frequency is an inherent property of the object. There are only two ways in which the
natural frequency can be changed: either change the mass, or change the stiffness.
Amplitude Response
A force (f) can be applied to the object and the frequency response in displacement (x) or acceleration
(a), can be plotted as shown in Figure 3. This is called a Frequency Response Function (FRF).
The largest displacement/acceleration of the mass occurs at the system’s natural frequency. Other
amplitude response observations include:
 Compliance plot - Below the resonant peak, the amplitude of the response is nearly constant,
approximately 1/k. This comes from Hooke’s law where force equals the product of stiffness and
displacement (f=kx). Below the resonant frequency, the response of the system can be said to
be stiffness dominated.
 Accelerance plot - Above the resonant peak, the amplitude is nearly a constant value of 1/m
(really -1/m if phase is accounted for) as shown in Figure 3. This behavior is due to Newton’s
second law where force is the product of mass and acceleration (f=ma). Above the resonant
frequency, the response of the system can be said to be dominated by the mass.
Knowing about these stiffness or mass regions can be useful in reducing vibration levels away from the
resonance.
Phase Response
Applying the force through a moving base, and observing the mass response, yields some interesting
phase relationships as shown in Figure 4.
The following can be observed:
 Below the natural frequency, the base and mass move together in phase.
 At the natural frequency, the base and mass move 90 degrees apart, which creates a kind of
“bucking” motion causing the high levels of vibration.
 Above the resonant frequency, the base and mass move out of phase.
Real world objects, from cars to airplanes to washing machines, can be thought of a collection of mass,
stiffness, and damping elements. They have many natural frequencies. Finite element models, used in
calculating natural frequencies virtually, use this approach. The models consist of a collection of
elements composed of mass (mass density) and stiffness (Young's modulus).
Damping
Damping is the way a system naturally dissipates energy. Think back to the guitar example: does the
guitar string oscillate forever after it is plucked? No! Energy is dissipated in the form of friction and
sound which causes the string to return to rest after it has been plucked.
In the single degree of freedom example covered in the previous section, the mass-spring system (m and
k) would stay in motion forever if there was no damper (c) present as shown in Figure 5.
he higher the damping, c, the sooner the response of the system decays to zero. The system response
amplitude at the resonant frequency is reduced by increased damping. At the resonant frequency, the
response of the system can be said to be damping dominated.
More information about damping, and how to calculate it, can be found in the Knowledge base article:
How to determine damping from a FRF.
Mode Shapes
The SDOF example system had one natural frequency. Structures in the real world are more complex,
and have multiple degrees of freedom (MDOF). As a result, real world structures have many natural
frequencies. The structure vibrates differently at each of these natural frequencies. How it moves at a
particular frequency is called a mode shape.
Two modes of an aircraft (selected from many modes) are shown in Figure 6. Each mode shape is
unique, with different parts of the aircraft participating in the mode.
Why is it important to understand modes and mode shapes? Mode shapes give valuable insight into
how a structure behaves when operating at its natural frequencies. The shape can show the engineer
where to constrain/modify a structure to reduce the vibration response, or how to shift the natural
frequency so it does not coincide with the frequency of an excitation.
In Figure 6, for example, the tail wing mode (right side) would need to be modified to change the natural
frequency. Changing the nose of the aircraft would have no effect on the natural frequency. The shape
gives insight into how to tackle a dynamic issue.
At higher frequencies, generally speaking, modes become local in natural, rather than global. In a global
mode, the entire structure participates (mode shape on left in Figure 6), while in a local mode, only part
of the structure participates (mode shape on right in Figure 6).
It is also typical that mode shapes become more complex at higher natural frequencies as seen in Figure
7.

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What is a natural frequency? What is resonance?

The definition of these items is:

A diagram of a mass-spring-damper system is shown in Figure 2.

The system consists of:

The natural frequency (wn) is defined by Equation 1.

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