Vibration of a beam induced by harmonic motion of a heat source

In this paper, a solution to the problem of thermally induced vibration of a uniform, simply supported beam is presented. The effect of internal damping on the vibration is considered. The temperature of the rectangular beam changes as a result of heating by a laser beam. The centre of the kaser spot moves harmonically around a fixed point of the beam. The exact solution of the problem is obtained by using a Green function method. From the investigation, it can be concluded that if a frequency of the beam vibration is a multiple of the harmonic motion frequency of the heat source, then resonance can occur in the system. A numerical calculation is carried out to illustrate the theory. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.