Adomian-modified decomposition method for large-amplitude vibration analysis of stepped beams with elastic boundary conditions

The main objective of this paper is to apply an Adomian modified decomposition method for solving large amplitude vibration analysis of stepped beams with various general and elastic boundary conditions. Damaged or imperfect supports of beams can be modeled by using elastic boundary conditions composing of translational and rotational springs. For the beams subjected to dynamic severe loading, it is important to include the nonlinear term of axial stretching force developed by the large vibration amplitude in the governing equation for more accurate design. By using the method, the convergence studies for linear and nonlinear vibration analyses of stepped beams are shown for determining an appropriate number of terms in the solutions. The accuracy of the present results is validated numerically by comparing with some available results in the literature. New results of nonlinear frequency ratios of stepped beams with different boundary conditions are presented and discussed in detail. Aspects of step ratio, step location, boundary conditions, vibration amplitudes, etc., which have significant impact on linear and nonlinear frequencies of such beams are taken under investigation.