An accurate and efficient series solution for the longitudinal vibration of elastically restrained rods with arbitrarily variable cross sections

Abstract

Longitudinal vibration of non-uniform rod has been of great significance in various engineering occasions. The existing works are usually limited to the certain area variation and/or classical boundary condition. Motivated by this limitation, an efficient accurate solution is developed for the longitudinal vibration of a general variable cross-section rod with arbitrary boundary condition. Displacement function is invariantly expressed as the summation of standard Fourier series and supplementary polynomials, with an aim to make the calculation of all derivatives more straightforwardly in the whole solving region [0, L]. Energy principle is employed for system dynamics formulation, with the elastic boundaries considered as potential energy stored in the restraining spring. Arbitrary cross-section area variation is uniformly expanded into Fourier series. Numerical examples are presented for the natural frequency and mode shapes of non-uniform rod of free and clamped boundary conditions and compared with literature data. Results show good agreement with the previous analytical solutions. Influence of cross section area variation on vibration characteristics of non-uniform rods is then studied and discussed. One of the most advantages of the proposed model is that there is no need to reformulate the problem or rewrite the codes when the cross-section area distribution and/or boundary conditions change arbitrarily.