Vibration Analysis of a Nonlinear Beam Under Axial Force by Homotopy Analysis Method

In this paper, Homotopy Analysis Method is used to analyze free non-linear vibrations of a beam simply supported by pinned ends under axial force. Mid-plane stretching is also considered for dynamic equation extracted for the beam. Galerkin decomposition technique is used to transform a partial dimensionless nonlinear differential equation of dynamic motion into an ordinary nonlinear differential equation. Then Homotopy Analysis Method is employed to obtain an analytic expression for nonlinear natural frequencies. Effects of design parameters including axial force and slenderness ratio on nonlinear natural frequencies are studied. Moreover, effects of factors of nonlinear terms on the general shape of the time response are taken into account. Combined Homotopy-Pade technique is used to reduce the number of approximation orders without affecting final accuracy. The results indicate increased speed of convergence as Homotopy and Pade are combined. The obtained analytic expressions can be used for a vast range of data. Comparison of the results with numerical data indicated a good conformance. Having compared accuracy of this method with that of the Homotopy perturbation analytic method, it is concluded that Homotopy Analysis Method is a very strong method for analytic and vibration analysis of structures.