Natural Frequencies and Buckling Load: 1. FEM Formulation of The Beam
Natural Frequencies and Buckling Load: 1. FEM Formulation of The Beam
The column is discretized using two-noded Euler beam elements of length ‘l’ with two degrees of
freedom namely transverse displacement and rotation at each node as shown in Fig 1. Let I be the
moment of inertia of the beam cross sectional area. To describe the displacement at intermediate nodal
points Hermite polynomial shape functions are used
3x2 2x3 x 2 x3
N3 3 ; N4 2
l2 l l l
Figure 1: Two noded beam element (1)
q1
q
w(x) N1 N2 N3 N4 2 (2)
q3
q4
Substituting eq. (2) in eq. (3) and applying Galerkin’s method, results in the stiffness matrix of the beam
element.
Ke
B EIBdx
T
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12 6l 12 6l
EI 6l 4l2
6l 2l2
Elemental stiffness matrix given by Ke 3 (4)
l 12 6l 12 6l
6l 2l2 6l 4l2
l
2w
1
T
e
ρA 2 (5)
2 t
0
Where ρ is the mass density per volume of the beam and A is the cross sectional area of the beam.
Substituting eq. (5) in eq. (8) and applying Galerkin’s method results in the elemental mass matrix for the
beam.
m
N ρANdx
e T
The beam is subjected to an external axial periodic force p(t) ,the elemental work done by the
external periodic force p(t) is given by
l
2w
1
we p(t) 2 dx (7)
2 x
0
Substituting eq. (2) in eq. (7) and applying the Galerkin’s method yields the geometric stiffness matrix.
l T
dN dN
0
k eg dx
dx dx
36 3l 36 3l
1 3l 4l 2
3l l2
K eg (8)
30l 36 3l 36 3l
3l l 3l 4l2
2
Where 𝐾𝑔𝑒 is called geometric stiffness matrix or stability matrix or initial stress matrix.
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5. Natural Frequencies and Mode Shapes
|𝐾 − 𝜔2 𝑀| = 0 (9)
Where K is the assembled stiffness matrix of the beam and M is the assembled mass matrix of the beam,
we get Eigenvalues / natural frequencies and Eigenvectors/mode shapes
6. Buckling Load
On solving the Eigen value equation
|𝐾 − 𝜆𝐾𝐺 | = 0 (10)
Where K is the assembled stiffness matrix of the beam and KG is the assembled geometric stiffness matrix
of the beam, we get Eigenvalues / Euler buckling load and Eigenvectors/buckling mode shapes of the
beam.
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Number of Elements
nel = 50
Material properties (MKS system)
Youngs modulus, E=2.1*10^11
Moment of inertia of cross-section, I=2003.*10^-8
Mass density of the beam, mass = 61.3
Total length of the beam, tleng = 7
To validate the code the values obtained are compared with the theoretical formulae’s available. Error
percentage is also shown.
The following are the result obtained for a clamped-free beam/cantilever beam:
Table 1
Natural frequencies (rad/S) and Buckling load (N) for the beam
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Figure 4: First four Buckling mode shapes (buckling load in N)
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