There are all sorts of resonances around us, in the world, in our culture, and in our technology. A tidal resonance causes the 55 foot tides in the Bay of Fundy. Mechanical and acoustical resonances and their control are at the center of practically every musical instrument that ever existed. Even our voices and speech are based on controlling the resonances in our throat and mouth. Technology is also a heavy user of resonance. All clocks, radios, televisions, and gps navigating systems use electronic resonators at their very core. Doctors use magnetic resonance imaging or MRI to sense the resonances in atomic nuclei to map the insides of their patients. In spite of the great diversity of resonators, they all share many common properties. In this blog, we will delve into their various aspects. It is hoped that this will serve both the students and professionals who would like to understand more about resonators. I hope all will enjoy the animations.

For a list of all topics discussed, scroll down to the very bottom of the blog, or click here.

Origins of Newton's laws of motion

Non-mathematical introduction to relativity

Three types of waves: traveling waves, standing waves and rotating waves new

History of mechanical clocks with animations
Understanding a mechanical clock with animations
includes pendulum, balance wheel, and quartz clocks

Water waves, Fourier analysis



Sunday, June 10, 2012

Resonance peak properties

All postings by author previous: 3.4 Various looks of resonance curves up: Contents next: 3.6 The resonance peak qualitatively

3.5 Resonance peak properties

Examining Fig. 10 we see that the resonance peak increases in height with higher Q (see (35) for more on Q). Below we will use (36) to determine this height and also the width of the resonance peaks and how they vary with Q. After we do this, (in the next posting) we shall examine an alternate way to view a driven resonator and gain a qualitative understanding why the Q has these effects on the height and width of the resonance peak.

Resonance curve peak height

When ω = ω0 , (36) becomes:

   (50)

Thus we see that the amplitude at resonance is proportional to the Q as Fig. 10 suggests.


Half power points, bandwidth

As a measure of how sharp the resonance curve is, we introduce the concepts of half power points and bandwidth. The half power points are the points on either side of the resonance at which the amplitude of oscillations is 70.7% the values at the peak (i.e. 1/√2  times the peak value). Because energy is proportional to the amplitude squared (i.e. U = kx2 ) at these points the energy in the resonator (and the power dissipated in the resonator) is half the peak value, hence the name. These points are marked as dots on the resonance curves in Fig. 10.

The bandwidth is defined as the horizontal distance between the two half power points (in frequency units). We next derive the bandwidth in terms of the Q for resonators of large Q's.


Table 1 - derivation of bandwidth as a function of Q for resonators with large Q's.
For large Q's, the bandwidth can be solved using Equation (36).    (36)
Copy of Equation (36).
The part of (36) that changes rapidly near ω = ω0 is the quantity inside the large parenthesis on the right side of the equation (36). We will focus on that factor, i.e.:    (51)
For this derivation, we will assume that the factor before the parenthesis can be approximated as constant for ω's near the resonance peak, i.e.:    (52)
At the peak ω = ω0 and thus equals 0 and the quantity inside the large parenthesis on the right side of the equation is equal to 1, i.e.:    (53)
In the next few boxes, we will show that the half power points occur when:    (54)
At these values of  , the quantity inside the large parenthesis on the right side of equation(36) becomes:    (55)
The energy in the resonator is proportional to the magnitude of this quantity squared:    (56)
Thus we have shown that when (54) holds, the energy in the resonator is half its peak value. We next calculate the difference between two values of ω for which (54) holds. We call these two values ω1 and ω2 (the left and the right half power points). We rearrange (54) as:

and        (57)
We manipulate the left sides of the two equations of (57):

   (58)
Equating this modified left side to the right side of (57) for our two half power points ω1 and ω2, we have:

and        (59)
Subtracting the two equations (59), one from the other and dividing by 2, we have:    (61)
Rearranging a little, we have the difference in frequencies i.e. the bandwidth Δω½ (in angular frequency units, i.e. radians per second):    (62)

In summary, we have shown that:

   ,    (63)

for large Q values, i.e. Q >> 1 . Thus bandwidth and Q are inversely related. The larger the Q the more narrow the resonance peak.

All postings by author previous: 3.4 Various looks of resonance curves up: Contents next: 3.6 The resonance peak qualitatively