Analytic Approach to Free Vibration and Buckling Analysis of Functionally Graded Beams with Edge Cracks Using Four Engineering Beam Theories

A complete investigation on the free vibration and stability analysis of beams made of functionally graded materials (FGMs) containing open edge cracks utilizing four beam theories, Euler-Bernoulli, Rayleigh, shear and Timoshenko, is performed here. It is assumed that the material properties vary along the beam thickness exponentially and the cracked beam is modeled as two segments connected by two mass-less springs, extensional and rotational spring. Afterward the equations of motion for the free vibrations and buckling analysis are established and solved analytically for clamped-free boundary conditions. A detailed parametric study is also performed to examine the influences of the location and depth of the crack, material properties and slenderness ratio of the beam on the free vibration and buckling characteristics of cracked FGM beams for each of the four engineering beam theories.