Three-dimensional vibration of rotating functionally graded beams

Abstract

The three-dimensional free vibration and time response of rotating functionally graded (FG) cantilevered beams are studied. Material properties of functionally graded beams are assumed to change gradually through both the width and the thickness in power-law form. The second-kind Lagrange’s equations are used in conjunction with the Ritz method to derive the comprehensive coupling dynamic equations for the axial, chordwise, and flapwise motions. The trial functions of deformations are taken as the products of the Chebyshev polynomials and the corresponding boundary functions. Nonlinear coupling deformations are considered to capture the dynamic stiffening effect due to the rotating motion. The influences of the material gradient index and rotational speed on modal characteristics are investigated by the state space method. The eigenvalue loci veering phenomena with modal conversions are exhibited. The time responses indicate that the deformations of rotating functionally graded beams are greatly affected by the material gradient index. It is shown that for large deformation problems, using Chebyshev polynomials is more efficient in computing precision and robustness than using other polynomials.