Natural Frequencies and Buckling Load

Siva Srinivas Kolukula

Structural Mechanics Laboratory
IGCAR, Kalpakkam
INDIA E-mail: allwayzitzme@gmail.com

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 2x3 2x2 x3

N1  1    ; N2  x   2
l2 l3 l3 l l

3x2 2x3 x 2 x3
N3   3 ; N4    2
l2 l l l
Figure 1: Two noded beam element (1)

The transverse displacement w(x) can be written as

 q1 
 
q 
w(x)  N1 N2 N3 N4  2  (2)
q3 
q4 

2. Element Stiffness Matrix

Elemental potential energy Ue of the beam is given by

l
1 2   2 w 
Ue 
 EI
2 x2  x 
0
(3)

Substituting eq. (2) in eq. (3) and applying Galerkin’s method, results in the stiffness matrix of the beam
element.

Ke 
 B EIBdx
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 

3. Element Mass Matrix

Elemental kinetic energy Te of the beam element is given by

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 ρANdx
e T

 156 22l 54 13l 

 
ρAl  22l 4l2 13l  3l2 
Me  (6)
420  54 13l 156  22l
 
 13l  3l  22l 4l2 
2

4. Elemental Geometric Stiffness Matrix

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 

Elemental geometric stiffness matrix given as follows

 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

On solving the Eigen value equation

|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.

7. About the present Code

The present code can be used to find the natural frequencies and buckling load and plot
the mode shapes for the given beam. Four different boundary conditions as shown in Fig 2 are
considered in the code. User can change the type of boundary condition. User can change the
number of elements and geometric, physical properties of the beam accordingly. At present the
following are the values used in the code

Figure 2: Columns with different boundary conditions

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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

Mode Theory FEM Error %

1 18.8177 18.7964 -0.1132
2 117.6106 117.7989 0.1568
3 329.8443 329.9134 -0.0045
Buckling
211808 211808 -0.0010
load

Figure 3: First Four Mode Shapes (frequencies in rad/s)

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Figure 4: First four Buckling mode shapes (buckling load in N)

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