Forced vibration of composite cylindrical helical rods

The dynamic behavior of composite cylindrical helical rods subjected to time-dependent loads is theoretically investigated in the Laplace domain. The governing equations for naturally twisted and curved spatial laminated rods obtained using Timoshenko beam theory are rewritten for cylindrical helical rods. The curvature of the rod axis, the anisotropy of the rod material, effect of the rotary inertia, axial and shear deformations are considered in the formulations. The material of the rod is assumed to be homogeneous, linear elastic and anisotropic. Ordinary differential equations in scalar form obtained in the Laplace domain are solved numerically using the complementary functions method to calculate the dynamic stiffness matrix of the problem accurately. The solutions obtained are transformed to the time domain using an appropriate numerical inverse Laplace transform method. The free vibration is then taken into account as a special case of forced vibration. The results obtained in this study are found to be in a good agreement with those available in the literature. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.