Single Degree of Freedom Dynamics

In this course I’m going to assume that you have a good understanding of SDoF structural dynamics - it would be odd to take a course on multi-degree of freedom dynamics unless you’re already familiar and comfortable with single degree of freedom systems. Ideally, you will have taken my course Fundamentals of Engineering Structural Dynamics with Python. If you have, this course continues on from that one and you’ll have covered everything you need. If you haven’t studied SDoF dynamics or it’s been a long time and you need a refresher, start there first.

In this course, we’ll be making use of a numerical solution technique that we covered in the previous Fundamentals course - the piecewise exact method. I’ll briefly review it at a concept level in this course but we’ll make use of the code that we wrote in the Fundamentals course. This is another reason why starting with the Fundamentals course might make more sense.

Python

Next, is the question of Python; if you’ve already taken the Fundamentals course - you know plenty of Python - dive straight into the course. If you’re coming directly to this course without any background in Python - this is not a problem. You don’t need to know Python to take DegreeTutors courses. My philosophy is that you can only really learn programming by working on something. So, you’ll pick up what you need along the way.

I’ll help you get a Python coding environment setup in the next lecture - after that, you just need to start working through the course - by the end, you’ll be very comfortable using Python as an everyday tool in your engineering workflows. If you thought your calculator was a handy tool - just wait until you get the hang of a Python console.

And remember, if you’re the kind of person that’s about to sit into a multi-hour course on structural dynamics - learning some Python along the way is unlikely to traumatise you!