Free vibration characteristics of sectioned unidirectional/bidirectional functionally graded material cantilever beams based on finite element analysis

Advancements in manufacturing technology, including the rapid development of additive manufacturing (AM), allow the fabrication of complex functionally graded material (FGM) sectioned beams. Portions of these beams may be made from different materials with possibly different gradients of material properties. The present work proposes models to investigate the free vibration of FGM sectioned beams based on onedimensional (1D) finite element analysis. For this purpose, a sample beam is divided into discrete elements, and the total energy stored in each element during vibration is computed by considering either the Timoshenko or Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. Then, Hamilton's principle is used to derive the equations of motion for the beam. The effects of material properties and dimensions of FGM sections on the beam's natural frequencies and their corresponding mode shapes are then investigated based on a dynamic Timoshenko model (TM). The presented model is validated by comparison with three-dimensional (3D) finite element simulations of the first three mode shapes of the beam.