Organized Spring Pendulum Motion

19 pages and countless hours later my dynamics project is done!! I am so happy to be finished with it. Overall, I proved that a spring pendulum system is chaotic but, its motion can still be modeled with dynamics. I used two methods, the second one is the most accurate as it shows the chaos in the motion of the pendulum system. The methods are respectively called simple pendulum motion and rigid body pendulum motion. The difference between the two is that rigid body motion takes more “real time” factors into account such as the mass of the spring, its changing length, inertial centers of masses of each object in the system and so on. the system is actually so complex that you can solve for the general equations of motion but, they are unsolvable by hand. The graphs you see here are numerical solutions to the motion of the pendulum. This concept is huge in terms of Engineering, as engineers must be able to predict and describe chaotic motion due to the affects it has on a structure. Dynamics is a fundamental course designed for students to be exposed to the important methods and concepts before they get into upper level courses.

Chaotic Spring Pendulum Motion

Personally, Dynamics is a hard class however, I find it really fun and educational. I learned so much from my project about how to describe motion through mathematics and numerical integrations. I really look forward to the other classes in which I can apply this knowledge.

So my question to our readers is this: Do you want to go to school at a university that challenges you in a way conducive to learning? I did, and that’s why I came to Embry Riddle Prescott. Stop by some time and join us 🙂