Exploring viscous damping in undergraduate Physics laboratory using electromagnetically coupled oscillators

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-cost electromagnetically coupled oscillator for undergraduate physics labs, enabling demonstrations of damping and forced oscillations, and offers a method to measure viscous damping forces in liquids.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, versatile oscillator setup that enhances teaching of wave phenomena and allows probing viscous damping in liquids with minimal modifications.

Findings

Demonstrates free, damped, and forced oscillations using the setup.

Provides a method to measure viscous damping forces in liquids.

Suggests activities for exploring non-linear damping effects.

Abstract

We design a low-cost, electromagnetically coupled, simple harmonic oscillator and demonstrate free, damped and forced oscillations in an under-graduate (UG) Physics laboratory. It consists of a spring-magnet system that can oscillate inside a cylinder around which copper coils are wound. Such demonstrations can compliment the traditional way in which a Waves & Oscillations course is taught and offers a richer pedagogical experience for students. We also show that with minimal modifications, it can be used to probe the magnitude of viscous damping forces in liquids by analyzing the oscillations of an immersed magnet. Finally, we propose some student activities to explore non-linear damping effects and their characterization using this apparatus.