Bead motion simulation. Quartic Oscillator model displays the motion of a bead moving without friction along a horizontal rod, while tied to two symmetric springs. Both the motion of the masses and the phase space plot are shown in the simulation. The natural length of the springs can be changed via textboxes. You can modify this simulation if you have Ejs installed by right-clicking within the plot and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.

Ejs Quartic Oscillator Phasor model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double clicking the ejs_ehu_oscillations_quartic.jar file will run the program if Java is installed. Ejs is a part of the Open Source Physics Project and is designed to make it easier to access, modify, and generate computer models. Additional Ejs models for classical mechanics are available. They can be found by searching ComPADRE for Open Source Physics, OSP, or Ejs.

Quartic oscillator
A bead may move without friction along a horizontal rod, while tied to two symmetric springs, as shown in the figure. The unit length is set to the distance between the rod and the fixed point of each spring, which has proper length L.

Activities
Study analytically the number and stability of the equilibrium points in the following three cases:
L < 1
L = 1
L > 1
Sketch the phase-space in each case.
Use the simulation to check your answers and drawings.

Requirements:
* Java

The license of this software is Free, you can free download and free use this graphing software.