DYNAMIC DISPERSION-CURVES FOR NONHOMOGENEOUS, ANISOTROPIC BEAMS WITH CROSS-SECTIONS OF ARBITRARY GEOMETRY

To accurately predict the dynamic behaviour of spanwise uniform, non-h omogeneous, anisotropic beams with arbitrary cross-sectional geometry is an important part of engineering analysis. Classical one-dimensiona l beam theory fails in this endeavour, and development of more sophist icated one-dimensional theories is an important task. A basis for deve lopment of improved one-dimensional theory is the dispersion curve ana lysis. A means to find the dispersion curves is discussed in this pape r. The code is developed to calculate the dispersion curves, as well a s corresponding mode shapes. The code is based on finite element discr etization over the cross-sectional domain. Use of this code provides b enchmark results for the testing of any existing one-dimensional theor y, as well facilitating the construction of new one-dimensional theori es. Dispersion information can be also useful in non-destructive evalu ation. As an example of a case where non-classical effects ale particu larly important, results obtained from this code for an I-beam are pre sented. Qualitative comparison with the well-known case of isotropic r ectangular beam is provided. Features that are common for all beams ar e emphasized along with pointing out qualitative differences that exis t for beams other than rectangular or circular. (C) 1998 Academic Pres s.