Reciprocating excitation of a flexible beam: Benchmark study

A long and slender flexible beam is set in oscillatory motion to observe its deflection. A novel application of digital image processing is employed to obtain contactless discrete measurements of the beam tip deflection. We compare the measured data to those predicted by a flexible multibody dynamics simulation (flxdyn). This study is intended as a benchmark. Moreover, the system is described in sufficient detail to enable other investigators to repeat, and build upon results herein presented for the first time.