Vibration analysis of cracked frame structures

In this work, the effects of crack depth and crack location on the in-plane free vibration, buckling and dynamic stability of cracked frame structures have been investigated numerically by using The Finite Element Method. For the rectangular cross-section beam a crack element is developed by using the principles of fracture mechanics. The effects of crack depth and location on the first four natural frequency, first critical buckling load and the first dynamic unstable region of multi-bay and multi-store frame structures are presented in 3D graphs. The comparison between the present work and the results obtained from ANSYS and SolidWorks shows a very good agreement.