DC Analysis of the WD Mass-Spring Oscillator

Considering the dc case first (), we see from Fig.F.35 that the state variable will circulate unchanged in the isolated loop on the left. Let's call this value . Then the physical force on the spring is always equal to

The loop on the right in Fig.F.35 receives and adds to that. Since , we see it is linearly growing in amplitude. For example, if (with ), we obtain , or

At first, this result might appear to contradict conservation of energy, since the state amplitude seems to be growing without bound. However, the physical force is fortunately better behaved:

Since the spring and mass are connected in parallel, it must be the true that they are subjected to the same physical force at all times. Comparing Equations (F.41-F.43) verifies this to be the case.

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About the Author: Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.