If the forcing frequency is close to the natural frequency of the system, and the system is lightly damped, huge vibration amplitudes may occur. This phenomenon is known as resonance.
If you ran the tests in the preceding section, you will have seen the system resonate. Note that the system resonates at a very similar frequency for each type of forcing.
As a general rule, engineers try to avoid resonance like the plague. Resonance is bad vibrations, man. Large amplitude vibrations imply large forces; and large forces cause material failure. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. Musical instruments, for example, are supposed to resonate, so as to amplify sound. Musicians who play string, wind and brass instruments spend years training their lips or bowing arm to excite just the right vibration modes in their instruments to make them sound perfect.
* There is a phase lag between the forcing and the system response, which depends on the frequency of excitation and the properties of the spring-mass system.
The response of the system is . Expressions for are given in the preceding section. Note that the phase lag is always negative.
You can use the applet to examine the physical significance of the phase lag. Note that you can have the program plot a graph of phase-v-frequency for you, if you wish.
It is rather unusual to be particularly interested in the phase of the vibration, so we will not discuss it in detail here.