Mass spring damper system

If you're a student, your best bet is probably LabView by National Instruments. Most engineering schools have it, and it's fairly easy to use.

Here's a place which apparently has mass-spring-damper applets available somewhere

http://mathinsite.bmth.ac.uk/html/applets.html

you might want to look at "Working model 2D" for motion simulation.

It simulates kinetics and dynamics.

Ahh Mechanical Vibrations, my cup of tea...

If you're trying to plot motion:

m*d²x/dt²+c*dt/dx+k*x=sinωt

where:

m=mass

c=damping

k=spring constant (stiffness)

ω=frequency of the forcing sinusoid

solve the Diff EQ for x(t) (using some initial conditions ie-x(t)=0, dx/dt=0) since you're an EE student should be cake (if not let me know and I'd be happy to derive the solution for you).

Plug x(t) into any mathematics software, such as matlab, mathcad, maple, etc... and you have the motion.

If this is a experiment, collect data (displacement probe, laser vibrometer, accelerometer) and import into a modeling software such as ME'Scope (or equivalent).

If it is only a model, build the mass-spring-damper in ALGOR, Working Model, or equivalent and apply the forcing function (sinωt) and simulate.

Hope this helps!

dear fattmaxx!

am not a mechanical engineer but civil (poor @ mathematics!), however I would like you to derive a solution for an equation that I intend to use for a perturbation analysis of river morphodynamic system. The eq seems to make morphodynamic system analogous to a mass-spring-damper system. Eq contains real and imaginary part as well. Here is the equation:

∂²h/∂x²+2*Im(k)* ∂h/∂x+(Re²(k)+Im²(k))h=0

Re(k) is real wavenumber (of river bedforms), and Im(k) is damping coefficient

Need solution for h(x). If you need any further info please lemme know.

Thanking you in anticipation!