An undergraduate experiment on the vibration of a cantilever and its application to the determination of Young’s modulus

An experiment is described to test the theory for the frequencies of lateral vibrations of a uniform cantilever. Good agreement between experiment and theory is obtained. Young’s modulus for the cantilever material (steel) is determined from the observed frequencies of the fundamental mode for a series of different lengths, and the result is compared with that obtained from static deflection of the cantilever. The agreement between the dynamic and static determinations is satisfactory.