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Vibrating Beam
1 Introduction
This example looks at the dynamic response of a cantilever beam in response to a cyclic force at the free
end. Closed form solutions are available for this case, which can be used to verify the QUAKE/W
formulation and code.

2 Problem description
The beam is fixed at the left end, and is free to move on the right end. A cyclic force is applied at the right
end, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Forced vibration of a cantilever beam

Based on closed form solutions for a case like this by Weaver (1990), the steady state response of the
beam can be expressed as:

Pl 3 
 X (X )
y sin t  i i 4i x l
EI i 1 kil 
where: P is the magnitude of vibration force, L is the length of the beam, E is the stiffness of the beam, I
is the moment of inertia, Xi are the characteristic functions representing the normal modes of vibration of
the beam, βi are the magnification factors and kil are the roots of the system frequency equation that relate
to the circular frequencies of the beam.
The characteristic functions for the above system can be expressed as:

X i = cosh k i x - cos k i x-  i (sinh i x- sin i x)

and:

cosh ki l  cos ki l
i 
sinh ki l  sin ki l

where sinh and cosh are hyperbolic functions, and x is the distance from the left to the right end of the
beam.
The frequency equation for the system is:

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cos kl cosh kl  1
The roots or solutions for the equation are:

Solutions of frequency equation for the beam

i 1 2 3 4 5 6
ki I 1.875 4.694 7.855 10.996 14.137 17.279

The magnification factor is:

1
i 
1   2 / pi2

Where Pi is the circular frequencies of the system that can be expressed as:

EI
pi  ki2
A

where A is the cross sectional area of the beam and  is the unit mass of the beam.
The vertical displacement on the right end of the beam is:

i  X i x l
2
 
Pl 3
 y x l  sin t 
kil 
4
EI i 1

where (Xi)x=1 represents a value of displacement at the right end of the beam for a normal mode. In this
case:

 X i x l  2 1
i 1

Therefore, the vertical displacement at the right end of the beam can be re-written as:

4 Pl 3 

 y x l  sin t  i 4
EI i 1 ki l 

4 Pl 3   2 3 
  1
   ... sin t
 1.875  4.694  7.855 
4 4 4
EI 
4 Pl 3
 0.080911  0.00206 2  0.000263  ...sin t
EI

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The closed-form solutions using these equations are as shown in the next table.

Beam parameters and numeric results

Parameter and Case 1 Case 2

Solution
Weaver’s QUAKE/W Weaver’s QUAKE/W
Solution Solution
Force magnitude, P 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Force frequency 6.283 6.283 6.283 6.283
Young’s modulus, E 120,000 120,000 30,000 30,000
Poisson’s ratio – 0.3 – 0.3
Length of the beam, l 5 5 5 5
Area of cross-section, A 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Inertia moment, I 1/12 1/12 1/12 1/12
Unit mass 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
Damping ratio 0 0 0 0
p1 14.063 14.457 7.031 7.228
p2 88.135 82.318 44.067 41.159
p3 246.804 – 123.402 –
Amplitude of (y) at x=1 0.005 3 peak 0.081 3 peak
average average
0.0045 - 0.100 with
0.0055 after phase shift at
15 seconds every 7
seconds

3 QUAKE problem definition

Figure 2 shows the finite element mesh. It is a plane strain and undamped dynamic analysis. The force is
defined by a cyclic "Y-force vs. time" boundary function, as shown in Figure 3.
2

File Name: Vibrating beam.gsz

1
Elevation

-1
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Distance - m

Figure 2 Vibrating beam problem

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Y Force function
1
Y-Boundary Force (kN)

-1
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

Time (sec)

Figure 3 Forcing function

4 Case 1
In this Case, the fundamental frequency of the beam is about 14.06 rad/sec, which is a little more than
double the forcing frequency of 6.28 rad/sec. This makes the beam vibrate at points other than at resonant
points. Figure 4 shows the beam vibration at the right end for Case 1. The amplitude from the hand
calculations is 0.005. The QUAKE/W amplitude after 15 seconds is between 0.0045 and 0.0055, or about
0.005.

Y-displacement w ith time

0.008

0.006

0.004
Y-Displacement (m)

0.002

0.000

-0.002

-0.004

-0.006

-0.008
0 5 10 15 20

Time (sec)

Figure 4 Case 1 beam vibration at the right end

5 Case 2
The second case is where the fundamental frequency is about 7.03 rad/sec, which is slightly more than the
forcing frequency. This makes the beam vibrate close to the first resonant point and results in a response
pattern that more clearly shows the phase shift behavior within a forced vibration.

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In the second case, the stiffness E is reduced from 120,000 kPa (G = 46,154) to 30,000 kPa (G = 11,534)
(this is the only change required to re-run the problem for the second case). The closed form amplitude is
0.081. The QUAKE/W average amplitude for three successive peaks is about 0.100, as is evident in
Figure 5, with a phase shift approximately every 7 seconds.

Y-displacement w ith time

0.20

0.15

0.10
Y-Displacement (m)

0.05

0.00

-0.05

-0.10

-0.15

-0.20
0 5 10 15 20

Time (sec)

Figure 5 Case 2 beam vibration at the right end

6 Conclusion
As is evident from this comparison, the QUAKE/W results are in good agreement with the closed form
solutions, indicating that QUAKE/W is correctly formulated and coded for this simple vibration problem.

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