In this paper, the vibration response of a swinging roller-follower cam
for five rise-dwell-fall-dwell motions is investigated. The follower rod is modeled as a Rayleigh beam. The roller end of the follower rod is restrained to the cam groove. Five cam profiles are studied. Hamilton’s principle and the assumed mode method are applied to formulate the equations of motion.The time history and FFT spectra of the transverse vibration response are obtained. It shows that the follower rod vibrates significantly especially for the case of high rotation speed of the cam. The peaks locate mainly at low frequencies which are odd times the cam rotation speed and at high frequency which is close to the fundamental natural frequency. The parameter effects including the length, the cross-sectional radius, and the total rise of the follower rod have also been investigated.