Modal Analysis of a Simply Supported Steel Beam with Cracks under Temperature Load

Based on the transfermatrixmethod, an analyticalmethod is proposed to conduct themodal analysis of the simply supported steel beamwithmultiple transverse open cracks under different temperatures. Theopen cracks are replaced with torsion springs without mass, and local flexibility caused by each crack can be derived; the temperature module is introduced by the mechanical properties variation of the structural material, and the temperature load is caused by the temperature variation, which can be transformed to the axial force on the cross-section. The transfer matrix of the whole beam with the temperature and geometric parameters of cracks can be obtained. According to boundary conditions of the simply supported beam, natural frequencies of the beam can be calculated, which are compared with the finite element results. Results indicate that the analytical method proposed has a high accuracy; the natural frequencies of the simply supported steel beam are mostly affected by the temperature load, which cannot be ignored.