# Time Period Question

1. Jun 18, 2006

### jrm2002

My question is that going by the definition of time period that is,
"the time required to complete one oscillation".

Now, if I say the best option for an engineer should be that , the building should not oscillate , am I right?

That could happen if the time period of a system is very large, right?
Because, if the time period is LESS, the frequency is MORE, hence the system would suffer more oscillations , right?So to make the building suffer no oscillations/ less oscillations the time period should be LARGE.

SO AM I RIGHT IF I SAY LESS STIFFNESS AND MORE MASS WOULD BE THE IDEAL CONFIGURATION?

2. Jun 18, 2006

### ZapperZ

Staff Emeritus
You can verify this yourself by simply looking at the expression for a period of oscillation for a simple harmonic oscillator. The period is given by

$$T = \sqrt{\frac{m}{k}}$$

[a factor of 2pi hanging around somewhere]

where T is the period, k is the spring constant (a measure of stiffness of the spring), and m is the oscillating mass. You can already see that to maximize T, you want to make k as small as possible, and m as large as possible.

Zz.