PROJECT

2: BUNGEE CORD
Due: 12:30 pm, Dec 1, 2016 (electronic submission)
Course: Numerical Methods
Instructor: Dr. Hooman Tafershi
Consider a 1 m long flexible cord (e.g., bungee cord) represented with an array of 11 pointmasses
connected to one another by springs and dampers as shown in Figure 1.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Dampers
Spring

Figure 1: MassSpringDamper (MSD) representation of a flexible chain.
The forces acting on a point mass are shown in the free body diagram illustrated in Figure 2. In
addition to gravity, there are spring and damper forces that act on each pointmass. Expressions for
these forces are listed below:

( , )
( , )

( , )

Figure 2: Free body diagram illustrating forces acting on point mass i.

p p

s i i 1
f i ,i 1 ks pi pi 1 lr (1)
pi pi 1

pi pi 1

s
f i ,i 1 ks pi pi 1 lr (2)
pi pi 1
d

f i ,i 1 kd u i u i 1 (3)
d

f i ,i 1 kd u i u i 1 (4)
s d s d
where f i ,i 1 , f i ,i 1 , f i ,i 1 , and f i ,i 1 are the spring and damper forces acting on pointmass by its

neighboring pointmasses, and p i , pi 1 , and pi 1 are the position vectors of pointmasses , 1,

and 1, respectively. k s and kd are the spring and damping constants, respectively. The un
stretched length of the springs is shown with and it is equal to 0.1 m. The velocity vectors for

pointmasses , 1, and 1, are shown with u i , u i 1 , and u i 1 , respectively. The instantaneous
distance between neighboring pointmasses are

p i p i 1 xi xi 1 yi yi 1
2 2
(5)

p i pi 1 xi xi 1 yi yi 1
2 2
(6)

Therefore, the fractions on the righthand side of Equations 1 and 2 are the unit vectors for the
distance between the corresponding pointmasses. The position and velocity of the pointmass can
be obtained by solving Newtons 2nd law written for each pointmass:



p i p i 1

p i p i 1


mai ks p i p i 1 lr k s p i p i 1 lr
p i p i 1 p i p i 1 (7)


kd u i u i 1 kd u i u i 1 mg

where g is the gravitational acceleration, a i is the acceleration of the pointmass , and m is the
mass of each pointmass. The above equation can be solved for any pointmass 2 10. See [1]
for more information.
What you should submit:
1 Develop a Mathematica code that solves the above equations for each pointmass.
2Assume zero initial velocity and zero stretching for the cord. Plot the profile and velocity of the
cord (the x y coordinates and velocity of each pointmass) when it falls under gravity at 10
different times starting from t=0 until the system stops moving (steadystate position) for ks / m
N N .s
and kd / m values of 100 and 10 , respectively.
m.kg m.kg
3 Repeat step 2 but for when the cord has an upward parabolic initial velocity with a peak value of
10 m/s.

4 Repeat step 2 but for when the cord is initially pull up from the middle to a height of 0.5 m above
the resting position.

5 Write a short, but yet clean and professional report to describe your work. Up to 25% of your
grade will be based solely on the style and formatting of your report. Follow the instructions given
in Project 1 on how to prepare your report.

Note: While you can work together on your projects, what you submit should be your own
work. Copying homework, using existing solutions (e.g., from previous years) or solutions
manuals will be considered a violation of the University Honor Policy.

References:
1D.G. Venkateshan, M.A. Tahir, H.V. Tafreshi, and B. Pourdeyhimi, Modeling Effects of Fiber Rigidity
on Thickness and Porosity of Virtual Electrospun Mats, Materials and Design 96, 27 (2016)