Vol. 12 No. 2Apr.

2014
The theoretical analysis of dynamic
response on cantilever beam of
variable stiffness
Huo BingyongYi Weijian
College of Civil EngineeringHunan UniversityChangsha 410082China
Abstract The paper presents the theoretical analysis of a variable stiffness beam. The bending stiffness EI
varies continuously along the length of the beam. Dynamic equation yields differential equation with variable co-
efficients based on the model of the Euler-Bernoulli beam. Then differential equation with variable coefficients
becomes that with constant coefficients by variable substitution. At lastthe study obtains the solution of dy-
namic equation. The cantilever beam is an object for analysis. When the flexural rigidity at free end is a constant
and that at clamped end is variedthe dynamic characteristics are analyzed under several cases. The results dem-
onstrate that the natural angular frequency reduces as the flexural rigidity reduces. When the rigidity of clamped
end is higher than that of free endlow-level mode contributes the larger displacement response to the total re-
sponse. On the contrarythe contribution of low-level mode is lesser than that of high-level mode.
Key wordsstiffness functiondifferential equation with variable coefficientscantilever beam
1 Introduction
Vibration of a variable stiffness beam is ana-
lyzed in this paper.
Vibration of a continuumor called system with
distributed mass and elasticityhas perfect analytical
solutions in some simple structural systemssuch as
uniform beam. The subject has been presented by
many researches
[1-3]
. The analytical methods are limi-
ted with respect to the complicated systems in struc-
tures
[4]
. Such cases have been analyzed by discrete
structure of continuum as systems with a finite num-
ber of degree of freedoms (DOFs)
[2]
. Some authors
have studied a beam with variable cross-sections
using equivalent representations
[5]
and analog equa-
tions
[6]
respectively.
In this paperthe Euler-Bernoulli beam is adop-
ted whose stiffness is variable along the length x of
the beam. It is assumed that in the method presented
here the stiffness function is EI(x)=(A+Bx)
4
. Then the
differential equation with variable coefficients would
be gottenand with variable substitution which is
simplified to become a differential equation with con-
stant coefficients. So the analytical results can be ob-
tained by method of solving linear ordinary differen-
tial equations with constant coefficients. As an exam-
plecantilever beam with variable stiffness is ana-
lyzed of which the 5- order natural frequencies and
modal shapes are calculated. The analysis will not on-
ly help to understand vibration characteristics of the
variable stiffness systembut also advance to build
approximate solution to study the more complex situa-
tion.
2 Euler-Bernoulli beam model
Based on the past researchesfree vibration can
be written as follows
[EI(x)y

+ m(x)y = 0 (1)
whereEI(x) is bending stiffnessm(x) is mass per
unit lengthy(xt) is total lateral deflection.
Assuming
y(x, t) =

i = 1

i
(x)q
i
(t) (i = 1, 2, 3, ) (2)
Substituting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1)we obtain
Received 14 October 2013
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ENGINEERING SCIENCES

q(t) +
2
q(t) = 0 ( ) 3
[EI(x)

(x)]

-
2
m(x)(x) = 0 ( ) 4

where is natural frequency. When
EI(x) =(A + Bx)
4
= H(x) (5)
whereAB are undetermined coefficients. Substitu-
ting Eq. (5) into Eq. (4)we obtain
H
(4)
+ 2H

+ H

-
2
m= 0 (6)
To make
(A + Bx) = e
z
z = ln(A + Bx) (7)
Substituting Eq. (7) into Eq. (6)we obtain
d
4

dz
4
+ 2
d
3

dz
3
-
d
2

dz
2
- 2
d
dz
-

2
m
B
4
= 0 (8)
If we have the solutions of Eq. (3) and Eq. (8)then
the response of variable stiffness vibration can be an-
swered.
3 Solution of the variable stiffness
vibration equation
Writing directly the solution of Eq. (3)
q(t) = sin(t + ) (9)
where are undetermined parameters.
To obtain the solution of Eq. (8)in practical
structurethe coefficients AB and m can be known.
Only the natural frequency is an unknown parame-
ter. There are three steps to solve Eq. (8).
1) Assuming the frequency valve of then sub-
stituting into Eq. (8)we will get 4-order the lin-
ear homogeneous equation with constant coefficients.
The characteristic equation is 4-order algebraic equa-
tions. According to the property of algebraic equa-
tionsthe characteristic equation of Eq. (8) has two
real and a couple of conjugate complex number
rootsor four real roots.
2) Solving the characteristic equation. Assuming
the roots of the characteristic equation is the former
caser
1
r
2
r
3
r
4
i then the solution of Eq. (8) is
written as follows
(z) = C
1
e
r
1
z
+ C
2
e
r
2
z
+ e
r
3
z
[C
3
cos(r
4
z) +C
4
sin(r
4
z)] (10)
Substituting for tthe general solution of Eq. (6) is
expressed as follows
(x) = C
1
(A + Bx)
r
1
+ C
2
(A + Bx)
r
2
+
C
3
(A + Bx)
r
3
cos[r
4
ln(A + Bx)] +
C
4
(A + Bx)
r
3
sin[r
4
ln(A + Bx)]
(11)
whereunknown constants C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
are de-
termined by the boundary conditions of column.
Simple boundary has four equations at two
endstwo at each end of the beam. For examplethe
boundary conditions of cantilever beam can be ex-
pressed as follows
(0) = 0

(0) = 0

(l) = 0

(l) = 0 (12)
wherel is the length of cantilever beam.
Rewriting Eq. (11) as
(x) = C
1

1
(x) + C
2

2
(x) + C
3

3
(x) + C
4

4
(x) (13)
Associating Eq. (12) and Eq. (13)we obtain

1
(0)
2
(0)
3
(0)
4
(0)

1
(0)

2
(0)

3
(0)

4
(0)

1
(l)

2
(l)

3
(l)

4
(l)

1
(l)

2
(l)

3
(l)

4
(l)

C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
= 0 (14)
Abbreviating Eq. (14) to
C= 0 (15)
Since C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
cannot be zeroso
| | = 0 (16)
3) The Eq. (16) can be satisfied by selecting
then
i
(i = 123...) can be found. Substituting
i
into Eq. (8) to obtain the roots of Eq. (8). Thus
Eq. (14) is specific algebraic equations. Now remove
directly the forth row of the matrix because of | | = 0.
Application of Cramers Rule provides the values
of C
1
C
2
C
3
with C4=1. The natural vibration mode
corresponding to
i
is obtained by substituting
C
1
C
2
C
3
C
4
in Eq. (11). Hencedynamic equa-
tion of variable stiffness is solved completely.
4 Cantilever beam as an example
The process above can solve a class of vibration
problem of variable stiffness. As an example dy-
namic characteristics of cantilever beam are analyzed.
Five cases are presented in Table 1. Properties of the
beam are listed asbeam length l=1.5 mmass per
unit length m=112.5 kg/mthe bending stiffnesses of
the free ends are all equal EI = 9.45 10
6
Nm
2
the
bending stiffnesses of the clamped ends which are dif-
ferentthe coefficients AB corresponding and the
bending stiffness function (A + Bx)
4
are shown in
Table 1. Bending stiffness EI(x) of the working condi-
tions is shown in Fig. 1.
Table 1 Coefficients of the beam at working conditions
Working
conditions
Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
Case 5
Bending stiffness of
clamped end
0.9EI
0.95EI
EI
1.05EI
1.1EI
A
54.003 1
54.738 0
55.444 4
56.124 9
56.781 4
B
0.960 9
0.471 0
0
-0.453 6
-0.891 3
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Vol. 12 No. 2Apr. 2014
Fig. 1 Bending stiffness EI(x) of the working conditions
Make computer programs in order for the calcu-
lation. For each caseset the first loop value to ob-
tain the enough particular
i
(i = 123...) that
satisfies Eq. (16). Thensubstitute the constants to ob-
tain the ith mode corresponding to
i
.
Calculate the first 5-order natural frequencies and
corresponding modal shapes. For natural frequency of
each casethe ratio of change of another case
i
to
case 3
3

i
is written

i
-
3

i
3

i
(Fig. 2). Modal shape
of each case is shown in Fig. 3~Fig. 7.
Fig. 2 The ratio of change of other cases relative to case 3
Fig. 3 The first 5-order modes of case 1
Fig. 4 The first 5-order modes of case 2
Fig. 5 The first 5-order modes of case 3
Fig. 6 The first 5-order modes of case 4
Fig. 7 The first 5-order modes of case 5
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ENGINEERING SCIENCES
In the cases of variable stiffnessthe stiffness
values are constant at free end and variable from large
to small at clamped end. The results show that each-
level natural frequency all declines when stiffness of
clamped end declines. Low- level frequency reduces
more than that of high- level. Meanwhilethe low-
level mode has smaller contribution to the displace-
ment when stiffness of clamped end was less than
free end. On the contraryit has larger contribution.
5 Conclusions
An analytical approach has been performed on a
class of vibration problem of variable stiffness. This
method limits the form of stiffness function EI(x)=(A+
Bx)
4
. For practical structurethe stiffness of one end
is larger than the other end. This behavior is likely to
find more applications for cantilever beam model.
The stiffness of clamped end is often designed stron-
ger than that of free end by increasing reinforcement
ratio. Howeverthe stiffness of the actual project is
more complex. The method and analysis is not suffi-
cient enough to solve variety service structure.
Through this methodfive cases of variable stiffness
are analyzed. The results show that natural frequency
declines as stiffness of clamped end decreases. If stiff-
ness of clamped end is cut down by just 10 %funda-
mental frequency will drop by 4 %. And modal contri-
bution to the displacement response can yield change.
References
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2007.
[2] Meirovitch L. Fundamentals of Vibrations [M]. New YorkMc-
Graw-Hill2001.
[3] Tang Y. Numerical evaluation of uniform beam modes [J]. Journal
of Engineering Mechanics ASCE2003129 (12)1475-1477.
[4] Gimena F NGonzaga PGimena L. 3D- curved beam element
with varying cross-sectional area under generalized loads [J]. En-
gineering Structures200830(2)404-411.
[5] Zheng T XJi T J. Equivalent representations of beams with peri-
odically variable cross- sections [J]. Engineering Structures
201133(3)706-719.
[6] Katsikadelis J TTsiatas G C. Non-linear dynamic analysis of
beams with variable stiffness [J]. Journal of Sound and Vibration
2004270 (4/5)847-863.
Author
Huo Bingyongreceived his PhD from Hunan University. His current research is structural vibration tes-
tingsystem identification of structuresnew theoretical formulation and numerical techniques,etc. He can be
reached by E-mailhuo@hnu.edu.cn
Foundation itemNational Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51178175)
96