A distributed-mass approach for dynamic analysis of Timoshenko plane frames

The dynamic stiffness method is the exact method for the dynamic analysis of plane frames using the continuous-coordinate system to consider the effect of mass distribution in beam elements. The dynamic stiffness method may create some null modes where the joints of beam element have null deformation. Unlike the Bernoulli–Euler frames, adding an interior node at the middle of the beam elements cannot normalize all the null modes of flexural vibration in the Timoshenko frames. The floating interior-node scheme is proposed to eliminate the null modes of flexural vibration in the Timoshenko frames. Orthogonal properties of vibration modes in Timoshenko plane frames are theoretically derived, through which the equations of motion in beam elements can be transformed into the decoupled equations of motion in terms of mode amplitudes.