SPLINE FINITE MEMBER ELEMENT METHOD FOR VIBRATION OF THIN-WALLED MEMBERS WITH SHEAR LAG

Abstract

In this paper, the outlined model is extended to cover the dynamics of thin-walled members with open or closed cross-section, making use of Hamilton's principle. Based on the displacement variational principle, a systematic method, called the spline finite member element method, is developed for vibration analysis of thin-walled members with arbitrary cross-section. The displacements at two ends of the member element are adopted as basic variables in the method. A transformed B3-spline function is used to simulate the warping displacements along the cross-section of the thin-walled member. The analysis takes into account the effect of shearing strains of the middle surface of walls on the vibration, which reflect the shear lag phenomenon. To verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method, four experiments are conducted in which the present results are compared with those using other analytical methods and the “COSMOS/M” finite element analysis program.