VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONALLY GRADED BEAM BY USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD (Project Report)

Abstract
The dynamic characteristics of functionally graded beam in which material properties changes either in an axial direction or along the thickness of beam following a simple power law are studied. The system of equations of motion is derived by using the Lagranges principle under the assumptions of the EulerBernoulli beam theory. Resulting system of ordinary differential equations of free vibration analysis are solved using an analytical method. The finite element method is employed to discretize the model and obtain a numerical approximation of the motion equation. The model has been verified with the previously published works and found a good agreement with them. Numerical results are presented in tabular form to figure out the effects of different material distribution and boundary conditions on the dynamic characteristics of the beam.

Introduction
Functionally graded material (FGM) is an intentionally developed material to fulfil certain function. First attempt was made in 1984, in Sendai area of Japan, to manufacture FGM. They are heterogeneous, anisotropic materials made up of ceramic on one side and metal on the other. Hence the material properties change gradually with location within the FGM. The ceramic, low thermal conductivity material, generally facing high temperature side guards the metallic surface from corrosion and thermal failure, whereas the metallic part gives strength and stiffness to the structure generally presents on low temperature side. The benefit of using FGM is that they are able to withstand high-temperature gradient surroundings while maintaining their structural reliability. FGM is different from composites wherein the volume fraction of the presence is uniform throughout the composite. The closest analogies of FGMs are laminated composites, but the latter possess distinct interfaces across which properties change abruptly. It possesses properties that vary gradually and continuously with respect to the longitudinal or transverse directions in order to achieve a necessary function. The composition is varied from a ceramic rich surface to metal rich surface with a desired variation of the volume fraction of the two materials in between two surfaces can be easily achieved . Initially, FGMs were designed as thermal barrier materials for aerospace application and fusion reactors. Later on, FGM are developed for military, manufacturing industry, biomedical application, automotive, semiconductor industry and general structural element in thermal environments. The literature on the analytical free vibration analysis of FG beams is limited certain articles. Chakraborty et al. developed a new beam element to study the thermo elastic behaviour of FG beam structures considering shear deformation. S.A. Sina, H.M. Navazi , H. Haddadpour studied An analytical method for free vibration analysis of functionally graded beams. B.V. Sankar developed an elasticity solution for functionally graded beams. In his solution, an exponential function was assumed to describe the beams stiffness variation through thickness. However, Sankars model was limited to long beams with slowly varying transverse loadings. Rajesh K. Bhangale, N. Ganesan worked on Thermo elastic buckling and vibration behaviour of a functionally graded sandwich beam with constrained viscoelastic core. Failure mode investigation of sandwich beams with functionally graded core analysis was carried out by Antonio F. A Vila. Free vibration characteristics of a functionally graded beam by finite element method were studied by Amal E. Alshorbagy, M.A. Eltaher, and F.F. Mahmoud.

Mathematical Development
The functionally graded beams are of 2 kinds. 1) FG beam in which ceramic material is present on the lower side and metal is present on the top of beam which means that material and mechanical properties are varying depth wise i.e. in Z direction as shown in Fig:1a 2) FG beam in which ceramic material is present on the left side and metal is present on the right side of beam which means that material and mechanical properties are varying length wise i.e. in X direction as shown in Fig:1b

Fig: 1. A typical FG beam

In the present study, second type of beam is considered. To analyse the functionally graded beam, different mathematical models have been developed. Some of these models are as follows

Fig: 2. Models to represent FG beam mathematically

In the first model, Fig: 2 (a), metal is represented by rectangular particulate matter dispersed in the ceramic material. In all 8 regions are considered along the depth of beam. In region 1 only metal is present while in region 8 only ceramic is present. As we move from region 8 to 1 metallic property increases but in a region wise manner which means that, in region 8, 100% ceramic is present while in region 7, 80% ceramic and 20% metal is present and so on. But this variation is not continuous, for a particular region composition is fixed and it changes abruptly as region is changed. The second model, Fig: 2 (b), is similar to first in all sense except that, instead of considering the metal as particulate phase, it is considered as continuously dispersed phase in ceramic. In the third model, Fig: 2 (c), it is considered that the material is continuously varying in the cross section. The third model gives better results as compared with the other two as it is more realistic one. In the present study, the model in which material and mechanical properties are varying continuously in the longitudinal direction is considered. The mechanical properties are considered to be varying according to Power Law given as

Where, P any property under consideration at distance X from left of beam, PR the value of property under consideration on the right side of the beam, PL the value of property under consideration on the left side of the beam, k material property exponent (any non negative number). The FG beam having length L, width b and depth or thickness h is shown in the Fig: 1 (b) above. In this paper it is considered that the ceramic material is Alumina (Al2O3) and the metal is Steel. The mechanical properties of both of them are given in table below
Table 1 Mechanical properties of Alumina and Steel

Property Density Modulus of elasticity

Unit Kg/m3 Gpa

Alumina Steel 3960 7800 390 210

The length (L) and width (W) of beam are considered to be 1m and 0.4m respectively. 2 length to depth ratios are considered as 15 and 20. As, length to depth ratios considered are greater than 10, Euler Bernoulli Beam element is used for analysis. 3 different kinds of boundary conditions for beam are considered to be 1) Simply Supported, 2) Clamped Clamped, 3) Cantilever By considering all the above mentioned specification for FG beam, vibrations of the same are analysed by using Lagrange Principle which is an energy method, with the help of MATLAB 7.1 (R2010a) software.

Lagrange Principle

Fig: 3. A beam element

Lagrange principle is applied to the beam element shown in Fig: 3 above. At each node 3 degrees of freedom, (u axial, v transverse, - rotational), are considered. Only 2 nodes are considered per element. Hence, total number of degrees of freedom per element is 6.

Shape Functions To obtain the shape functions for given beam element, first energy functions for kinetic energy (T) and strain energy (U) are acquired by considering the strains developed in the beam. Energy functions are in terms of u, v, - the 3 displacements of each node of beam element. These 3 displacements are then represented in terms of shape functions developed as below

N1= (1-) N2= N3= (1- 32 +2 3) N4=a (1-2 + 2) N5= (3-2 ) N6=a 2(-1)
By using developed shape functions and energy equations, elemental mass and stiffness matrices are developed as Mass matrix= (aA)

Stiffness matrix=

The elemental mass and stiffness matrices are assembled to get Global mass and stiffness matrices. By using developed MATLAB code natural frequencies for the beam are calculated after realising the fact that convergence requirements are satisfied if no of beam elements are 20 for 1m long beam. The results are obtained for various conditions as discussed below 1) First 5 dimensionless natural frequencies for different values of material property exponent k (0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 5) for each boundary condition 2) First 5 dimensionless natural frequencies by inverting material composition 3) First 5 dimensionless natural frequencies for different length to depth ratio

Dimensionless natural frequency is given by square root of given as

Results
Table 2 Cantilever beam

Metal on left and ceramic on right

Metal on right and ceramic on left

Table 3 Simply Supported Beam

Metal on left and ceramic on right

Metal on right and ceramic on left

Table 3 Clamped Clamped Beam

Metal on left and ceramic on right

Metal on right and ceramic on left

Discussion Let us first analyse the case for Cantilever Boundary condition 1) Observing Table 2, it is clear that, for both the cases of material composition i.e. metal on right side and metal on left side, the dimensionless natural frequencies for different length to depth ratios are same for a particular value of k material property exponent. 2) For same length to depth ratio, the dimensionless natural frequencies are same for k=1, for both material composition. But natural frequencies for k<1, are greater for metal on right side than for metal on left side. Moreover natural frequencies for k>1, are greater for metal on left side than for metal on right side. 3) As k increases, the dimensionless natural frequencies also increase for metal on left material composition but it decreases for metal on right composition.

4) The natural frequencies for different kinds of beam boundary condition are in the order Natural frequencies for cantilever are less than that of simply supported than that of clamped clamped.

References 1) B.V. Sankar, An elasticity solution for functionally graded beams, Compos. Sci. Technol. 61 (2001) 689696. 2) Amal E. Alshorbagy, M.A. Eltaher , F.F. Mahmoud, Free vibration characteristics of functionally graded beam by finite element method, Applied mathematical modelling; 35 (2011) 412-425. 3) S.A. Sina, H.M. Navazi , H. Haddadpour, An analytical method for free vibration analysis of functionally graded beams Department of Aerospace Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Avenue, P.O. Box 11365-8639, Tehran, Iran. 4) Leslie Banks-Sills, Rami Eliasi, Yuri Berlin; Modelling of functionally graded materials in dynamic analyses; Composites part B Engineering Elsevier; 33(2002) 7 15. 4) Finite element vibrations analysis, Maurice Petyt, Cambridge university press. 5) Finite element methods using Matlab, W young, crc press, New York.