International Journal of Mining, Metallurgy & Mechanical Engineering (IJMMME) Volume 1, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN 23204060 (Online)

General Form of the Stiffness Matrix of a Tapered Beam-column

Yasha H. Zeinali, S. Milad Jamali, and Saman Musician

AbstractShear deformation and distributed or concentrated

axial force influence the structural behavior of all kinds of beams specially tapered ones. A tapered Timoshenko-Euler beam element (general form of beams) under a concentrated and constant distributed axial force with box-shaped cross-section is considered and governing equilibrium differential equation established. By utilizing the Chebyshev Polynomial approach technique, the governing differential equation is fully solved and stiffness matrix established.

Keywords Buckling Load, Chebyshev Polynomial, Stiffness Matrix, Tapered beams, Timoshenko-Euler beam-columns. I. INTRODUCTION TRUCTURAL members may have non-prismatic sections. Utilizing the non-prismatic members causes the stresses distribute more smoothly and the consumption of material reduces [1]. These facts lead designers to use widely tapered members. During the past decades, several researchers have examined the structural behavior of this type of elements. Some of them focused on flexural or torsional buckling of non-prismatic members [4], [6], [8], [9], [10], [11], and some other focused on free vibration analysis of tapered members [5], [7], [12]. One of the analysis methods of tapered members is dividing it into a number of uniform elements which is called "step representation" [13]. This technique is lowly efficient [1]. An efficient method is solving the governing differential equation by using a numerical method. According to modeling assumptions, four types of elements for tapered members exist which are illustrated in Table I.
TABLE I TYPES OF BEAMS-ACCORDING TO CONSIDERED EFFECTS

Beam name Bernoulli Bernoulli-Euler Timoshenko Timoshenko-Euler

Axial Force

Shear Deformation

deformation. The TimoshenkoEuler element is the most general one. Shear deformation and distributed or concentrated axial force have been verified to influence significantly the structural behavior of all kinds of beams specially tapered ones [14]. These influences reduce the stiffness of members. Several researches have been done to establish the stiffness matrix and governing differential equation of equilibrium of a tapered beam element. In this studies a number of numerical methods have been proposed like: VIM (Variational Iteration Method) [17]-[19], General Polynomial Shape Function [4], Direct Integral approach [20], [21] and Bessel Function approach [1]. However, the governing differential equation of equilibrium in these publications did not simultaneously include effects of axial force and shear deformations. Shear Deformations have been included in many researches but this studies were on free vibration analysis of Timoshenko tapered beams. The effects of axial force on elemental stiffness in these studies were excluded. In 2002, Li and Li [1], established the equilibrium differential equation of a tapered Timoshenko-Euler beam by considering simultaneously effects of constant axial force and shear deformation. Li and Li employed power series method to obtain the expression of the tapered Timoshenko-Euler beam stiffness equation. In their equations, they assumed that the beam is just under a concentrated axial force and has an Ishaped section. They did not consider distributed axial force. So, to the authors' knowledge there is no publication at present obtaining the elemental stiffness matrix for tapered Timoshenko-Euler beam with box-shaped cross-section considering effects of concentrated and distributed axial force and shear deformation simultaneously. This paper drives the governing differential equation of equilibrium of the Timoshenko-Euler beam axial force by considering the effects of concentrated or constant distributed axial force and shear deformation simultaneously. II. GOVERNING DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION OF EQUILIBRIUM In this paper, it assumed that cross section of tapered beam is box-shape and symmetric. The applied forces as well as the corresponding deformation of tapered element is modeled as shown in Fig. 1 assuming the axis of the member remains straight.

According to Table. I, TimoshenkoEuler beam element (the last one) includes effects of axial force and shear
Yasha H. Zeinali, is M.Sc. Student at Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran (corresponding author to provide phone: +98-912-4942-181; e-mail: yasha_zeinaly@aut.ac.ir). Milad Jamali, is M.Sc. Student at Tehran University, Tehran, Iran. (e-mail: m_jamali90@ut.ac.ir). Saman Musician, is M.Sc. Student at Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. (e-mail: Saman.Musician@gmail.com).

149

International Journal of Mining, Metallurgy & Mechanical Engineering (IJMMME) Volume 1, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN 23204060 (Online)

area. According to basic relations we have ( ) =

()

(a)

In (6), is the shear Modules. In box-section thin-walled members it can be seen that the slope of the member induced by shear deformation is equal to total section shear strain ( ). So the slope of the member caused by shear deformation ( ) is () =
. () 1

. ()

( )]

(6)

(b)

Substituting (4) into (7), we have () = 1 + ( )( ) + 1 () . () (8)

( )]

(7)

(c) Fig. 1 (a) Element forces (b) Element deformation (c) Element free-body diagram Fig. 1-a and 1-b shows the positive directions of forces and deformations. Element deflection () (shown in Fig. 1-b) consists of two portions. One is caused by bending deformation ( ) and the other one induced by shear deformation ( ). Thus we have = + And a similar relation can be written for curvatures " = " + " " =
. ()

Differentiating (8) by yields " ( ) =

1

( ())2

( )( )

( ) 1

( ) + ( )1

( ) ( )( ) ( ) + ( )

( ) ( ) + ( )

( )

(9)

(1)

And by substituting (4) into (3) we obtain " =

( ) ( ) 1 +1 . 0 1 .() .()

(10)

(2)

Substituting (9) and (10) into (2) and simplifying yields

2 1 ()1 ()
2

The curvature of the element caused by bending is (3)

2

In (3) ( ) is inertia moment of the cross-section at the location of distance from left end of the element. is the elastic modules and is The cross-section moment. can be obtained by (4) ( ) = 1 1 . + ( )( ) + 1 . ( ) 0

( ) ( ) 0 ()

()

) + ( )( ) =

( )

()

()() () 1
2

1 +

( )( +

(4)

In (4), 1 and 1 are the left end shear force and moments and ( ) and 1 are distributed and concentrated axial force respectively. In box-shaped sections most of the shear stresses ( ) are acting on webs. According to this fact, the shear stress approximately is equal to ( ) =
() ()

(11) is the governing differential equation of equilibrium. In this paper the Chebyshev Polynomial approach have been utilized to solve this differential equation. It is better to solve the equation in the [0,1] domain [3]. So we need to convert the differential equation to non-dimensional form. This Procedure can be done by letting the = and rewriting (11) by this assumption. By defining some new functions, the equilibrium differential equation changes to ( )
2 2

()

( ) +

()

()

()

()

(11)

()

In (5), ( ) is the section shear force and ( ) is web

()

()

()

( )]

(5)

150

( )( ) = ( )1 + 0

( ) + ( )

( ) + ( ) ( )
1

(12)

International Journal of Mining, Metallurgy & Mechanical Engineering (IJMMME) Volume 1, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN 23204060 (Online)
n n i=0 i (n + 1 i)yn+1i + i=0 i yni + 0 1

In which ( ) =
( ) ( ) ( ) 2 3

( ) = ( ) =

( ) =

III. DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION SOLVING BY USING THE CHEBYSHEV POLYNOMIALS APPROACH

2 ( )

( )

( )1 ( )
2

(13a) +
( )

( ) ( )
2

( )( )

( )

( ))

( )

( )

(13b)
1

V1 n yn+2 =

( )

(13c) (13d)

In (17d) we can see that the term yn+2 is a linear function of y0 , y1 , y2 , y3 and V1 . Series yn may be found when the values of these terms are obtained. The boundary conditions is For = 0 0 = 0 1 = (1 1
1
(0)

1 [ n i=0 i (n + 1 0 (n+2)(n+1) n i)yn+1i n i=0 i yni + V1 X n i=1 i (n 0 1 i)(n + 1 i)yn+2i

+2

(17d)

as

The functions ( ), ( ), ( ) and ( ) can be expressed

( ) = =0 ( ) = =0 ( ) = =0 ( ) = =0

(14a) (14b) (14c) (14d)

(0)

and the general solution of deflection (( )) can be expressed as

( ) = =0

And for = 1 (1) = =0 = 2 1

(1)

)
1 (2 1 ) 0 .(1)

(18a) (18b)

(15a)

From the above we know that the series yn may be found when the values of terms y0 , y1 , y2 , y3 and V1 are obtained. So we can rewrite the (19a) and (19b) as 1 . 1 + 2 . 2 + 3 . 3 + 4 . 1 = (2 1 ) 5 . 1 + 6 . 2 + 7 . 3 + 8 . 1 =
.(1)
1 .(1)

=0

1 .(1)

(19a) (19b)

too. Differentiating with respect to , yields

1 ( ) = =1 "( ) = =2 ( + 1) 2

(15b) (15c)

1 (2 1 ) (1)

By substituting (14a)-(15c) into (12) we have

=0[=0 ( + 2 )( + 1 )+2 ] =0[=0 ( + 1 )+1 ] + 0 1 = =0(=0 ) + =1 1 1 =0 + 1

(16)

The deflection function (( )) is a general solution and it should be correct for all situations. We can assume that the values of y2 , y3 and V1 are equal to zero and just we have y1 = 1. So the (20a) and (20b) will be reduce to 1 = =0 5 = =0

(20a) (20b)

(21a) (21b)

Since (16) must be satisfied regardless of , setting the coefficient of to zero for = 0,1,2,3, we obtain three equations. For = 0 1 = 20 . 2 + 0 . 1 + 0 . 0 1 . 0

(21a) and (21b) obtains the value of 1 and 5 , simultaneously. By the same procedure and assuming a different values for terms y1 , y2 , y3 and V1 we can obtain the other coefficients. In Table II the assumed valued are shown.
TABLE II ASSUMED VALUES FOR CALCULATING

(17a)

For = 1 60 . 3 + 21 . 2 + 20 . 2 + 1 . 1 + 0 . 1 + 1 . 0 0 . 0 = 1 . 1 1 And For > 1 n i=0 i (n + 2 i)(n + 1 i)yn+2i +

The terms that should be calculated (17b) 1 , 5 2 , 6 3 , 7 4 , 8

151

(17c)

Assumed values for 1 3 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0

International Journal of Mining, Metallurgy & Mechanical Engineering (IJMMME) Volume 1, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN 23204060 (Online)

The equilibrium conditions are 1 + 2 = 0 1 1 1 (2 1 ) ( )( ) 1 0 2 = 0

1

(22a) (22b)

representation of the realistic deflection y(z) and the defined function by Chebyshev Polynomial with definite terms, which affects directly no more than the coefficients and . IV. VERIFICATION MODELS
3B

A. Buckling Load
5B

For simplifying the term ( )( ) in (22b) it can be 0 shown that =0 =0 =0 =0 ( )( ) = 0

1 1

And if we assume that the distributed axial force is constant (( ) = 0 ), we will have 1 . 1 + 2 . 2 + 3 . 3 + 4 . 1 In Which = =0
0 +1

++1

++1 1

++1

=1

(23) Fig. 2 Example-A Elastic buckling Load The elastic buckling load of the tapered cantilever column shown in Fig. 2 is obtained by general structural analysis software SAP2000-14 and the procedure presented in this paper assuming local and out-of-plane buckling are prevented.
200 AXIAL FORCE, N (103 KN) 150 100 50 0 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 Left end deflection in Fig. 2 (mm) 2.00 SAP2000-14 THIS PAPER

=0 =0

++1

= =0

1 +1 0

(24)

If the boundary deformations of the element 1 , 1 , 2 2 are known, the above equations can be combined for solving 1 and 1 . Assume that the matrix form of stiffness equation of the element is 1 1 1 = 1 2 2 2 2 +13 +16 13 +20 (26)

The term that should be calculated 1 2 3 4

TABLE III ASSUMED VALUES FOR CALCULATION OF

( = 1, ,4)

(25)

1 0 0 0 1

Assumed values 3 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

Fig. 3 P- graph for example-A Table IV summarizes these comparison results.

TABLE IV EXAMPLE-A RESULTS COMPARISON

Technique SAP2000-14 THIS PAPER Difference

Elastic buckling load (KN) 169792 166900 1.7 %

Then the stiffness matrix would be 15 = 18 +15 +19 +15 +18 15 +21 +14 +17 14 +22

B. Lateral deflection verification The results in Table. V represents the comparison between lateral mid-span deflection of the beam-column shown in Fig. 4 calculated by utilizing this paper procedure and FEM.
6B

(27)

The expression of ( = 1, ,22) are given in the Appendix A. In theory, the approach described above is accurate. The unique possible error comes computationally from the
152

Fig. 4 Applied Forces in example-B

International Journal of Mining, Metallurgy & Mechanical Engineering (IJMMME) Volume 1, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN 23204060 (Online)

The geometrical and material properties of this beam is look like the beam assumed in Fig. 4. The results of this paper have been calculated by dividing the whole model into two elements. The FEM results have been calculated by general structural analysis software SAP2000-14 and utilizing the step representation method. SAP2000-14 considers just the shear deformation influences on stiffness matrix.
TABLE V EXAMPLE-B RESULTS COMPARISON

Technique SAP2000-14 THIS PAPER Difference

Left end deflection ,1 (mm) 0.9462 0.9042 4.6 % V. CONCLUSION

11 3 6 + 11 4 ) 19 = 15 (1 2 15 + 2 (4 15 5 18 ) + 3 (6 15 7 18 ) 4 15 ) + 18 + 1 20 = 13 16 (1 (1 + 2 13 ) + 2 (3 + 4 13 + 5 16 ) + 3 (6 13 + 7 16 + 8 ) + 4 13 ) 21 = 15 (1 2 15 + 2 (4 15 + 5 18 ) + 3 (6 15 + 7 18 ) + 4 15 ) 1 18 22 = 14 (1 2 14 + 2 (4 14 + 5 17 ) + 3 (6 14 + 7 17 ) + 4 14 ) 17 = 2 = N1 + 0 N(z)dz = N1 + N0 L
L

REFERENCES

[1]

[2]

Axial Force and shear deformation influence the tapered beams stiffness-equation and significantly reduce their stiffness. A tapered Timoshenko-Euler beam element (general form of beams) under a concentrated and distributed axial force with box-shaped cross-section is considered and governing equilibrium differential equation established. By utilizing the Chebyshev Polynomial approach technique, the governing differential equation of latticed and arbitrary variational crosssection members is fully solved and stiffness matrix established. Like [1], The verifications proves that the proposed element and procedure could be successfully applied to general 2D structures. APPENDIX
1 = 4 = 6 = 8 =
(0)1 0 2 +0 1 5 = 2 , 20 0 1 10 2 21 4 20 4 1 2 60 0 1 21 3 20 3 1 1 60 (1)1 (0)

[3] [4] [5]

[6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

2 =

(0)1

3 =

0 1 20

, ,

[11] [12] [13] [14]

12 = 1 2 7 7 + 1 2 6 5 + 2 4 7 7 + 3 6 6 5 + 4 7 7 + 4 6 5 3 7 5 2 + 3 7 10 3 7 8 3 7 6 4 2 5 5 2 + 2 5 10 2 5 7 6 2 5 8 , 1 13 = (7 7 1 1 + 7 7 2 3 + 6 5 1 1 + 6 5 3 8 14 = 15 = 3 7 5 1 3 7 6 3 2 5 5 1 2 5 7 8 )
(3 7 2 5 )9 1 12 7 7 +6 5 11 3 7 11 2 5
12 12

(1) 9 = (1)1 0 11 = ( ) 1 1

10 =

7 =

5 (1 +0 ) 30

[15] [16] [17]

[18]

[19]

6 4 1 1 + 6 4 3 8 1 2 6 3 1 2 7 8 2 4 5 1 2 4 7 8 3 6 5 1 3 6 6 3 + 8 2 3 10 2 3 4 7 8 + 8 3 8 10 1 1 4 5 1 + 8 1 1 10 3 8 4 6 3 ) 17 = 18 = (5 2 + 10 7 6 8 6 4 + 11 2 4 +
12

16 = (5 2 2 3 + 5 2 3 8 + 7 6 1 1 + 7 6 2 3 +

12

[20] [21]

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(1 2 +2 4 +3 6 +4 )9 1 12

153