THEORETICAL & APPLIED MECHANICS LETTERS 2, 063006 (2012)

Geometric nonlinear formulation for curved beams with varying

curvature
Keqi Pan,a) and Jinyang Liub)
School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240,
China
(Received 30 August 2012; accepted 25 September 2012; published online 10 November 2012)
Abstract Based on exact Green strain of spatial curved beam, the nonlinear strain-displacement
relation for plane curved beam with varying curvature is derived. Instead of using the previous
straight beam elements, curved beam elements are used to approximate the curved beam with varying
curvature. Based on virtual work principle, rigid-exible coupling dynamic equations are obtained.
Physical experiments were carried out to capture the large overall motion and the strain of curved
beam to verify the present rigid-exible coupling formulation for curved beam based on curved beam
element. Numerical results obtained from simulations were compared with those results from the
physical experiments. In order to illustrate the eectiveness of the curved beam element methodology,
the simulation results of present curved beam elements are compared with those obtained by previous
straight beam elements. The dynamic behavior of a slider-crank mechanism with an initially curved
elastic connecting rod is investigated. The advantage of employing generalized- method is pointed
out and the special nonlinear dynamic characteristics of the curved beam are concluded.  c 2012
The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. [doi:10.1063/2.1206306]
Keywords curved beam, rigid-exible coupling dynamics, geometric nonlinear, experiment

Rigid-exible coupling dynamics of multibody sys- Y Beam's central

tem has been studied for a long time,1,2 however, not i
line function
Y/fX
much work has been done on the curved beams with ec
varying curvature. Sugiyama and Suda1 and Shabana
s
and Maqueda2 utilized the absolute nodal coordinate oc
formulation for the dynamic analysis of the curved and
gradient decient elements based on the concept of the Ob
straight beam element approximation. X
Although most of studies adopted the curved beam
element to approximate the curved beam,3,4 they Fig. 1. Axis of the curved beam with varying curvature.
mainly focused on the free vibration and static prob-
lems. For the rigid-exible coupling dynamics research,
Park and Kim5 investigated the dynamic characteristics central-line function of the curved beam before defor-
of a rotating curved beam with a tip mass, however, the mation is given by
radius of the curvature of the curved beam is so large
that the curved beam approaches straight beam, there- Y = f (X) . (1)
fore the nite element method used in this paper is not
persuasive enough. Pan and Liu6 analyzed the non- For the general curved beam in Fig. 1, the variant
linear dynamic analysis of curved beam, however, the radius of curvature is evaluated as
model are limited to the curved beam with constant 2  1
R (X) = [1 + ( dY / dX) ]3/2 d2 Y / dX 2 . (2)
radius. No further work based on the nite element ap-
proach has been reported on the curved beam with vari- The displacement elds of an arbitrary point on the
able curvature. Furthermore, the inuences of the ge- curved beam are given as follows
ometrically nonlinear performances of the curved beam
were not investigated. It is necessary to use the ge- u (s, , t) = u (s, t) (s, t) , (3)
ometric nonlinear strain-displacement relationships for v (s, , t) = v (s, t) , (4)
dynamic modeling of the planar curved beam by sim-
plication of the exact spatial curved beam theory.7 where s represents the arc length along the neutral axis
As shown in Fig. 1, an arbitrary undeformed ge- from the left end and is the distance along the thick-
ometry central axis of general curved beam is dened ness direction dened in a local curvilinear frame ec
in a reference coordinate system (oating frame). The xed on an arbitrary point of the neutral axis and is
cross section rotational deformation.
The assumption that the cross section of the beam
a) Email: keqipan@yahoo.com.cn. does not deform in its own plane is introduced. The
b) Corresponding author. Email: liujy@ sjtu.edu.cn. nonlinear strain components of the planar curved beam
063006-2 K. Q. Pan, and J. Y. Liu Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2, 063006 (2012)

Deformation conformation (9)

y0 p
Center line
where = tan1 ( dY / dX) is determined by the initial
e0 u
p0
congure of the curved beam.
Original e0 The second time-derivative of Eq. (8) is
conformation
r = r0 A 2 (s0 + A u ) +
(s + A u ) + 2IA
IA A u +
0
s0
Y eb uj vj
A A u , (10)
r ui
Ob j where I representsa skew-symmetric matrix, which can
X 
r0
vi
Curved beam 0 1
O0 element be written as I = .
x0 1 0
The virtual displacement coordinate vector reads
Fig. 2. Congurations of exible curved beam.
r = r0 + I A (s0 + A u ) + A A u . (11)
In the FEM, the deformations and the Cartesian co-
are derived according to Ref. 7 by introducing corre- ordinate for describing the initial shape are interpolated
sponding plane condition k = k = 0, k = 1/R, respectively as followings
= = 0, = 0 and small strain assumption cos 1,
2
sin , g = (1 k + k ) 1. Then the plane u = N1 () pe , v = N2 () pe , = N3 () pe , (12)
curved beam can be obtained as X () = N () X, Y () = N () Y , (13)
e11 = e11 + k11 + k22 = where is the natural coordinate (1 1), N ()
1 1 and Ni () (i = 1, 2, 3) are assembled by the isopara-
(u v/R) + u2 + v 2 + k11 , (5)
2 2 metric Lagrange cubic element shape function matrix.
2e12 = e12 + k12 = + v  + u/R, (6) pe = ( ue1 v1e 1e ue4 v4e 4e )T is the generalized
coordinate of a curved beam element, which reads pe =
where k11 =  , the superscript prime denotes the Be p, where p is the global elastic coordinate vector.
derivative with respect to s. The quadratic or higher Be denotes the Boolean matrix. X and Y represent
strain terms in e11 , e12 and k11 are neglected. generalized nodal coordinate value vectors.
The stress-strain relations are given by On the basis of Eq. (13), the innitesimal arc ele-
ment ds can be expressed as
11 = Ee11 , 12 = G G2e12 , (7)
ds = Je () d, (14)
where E is the modulus of elasticity, G is the shear 
modulus and G is the shear coecient. 2
where Je () = (dX ()/d) + (dY ()/d) .
2
The kinematics relations of an arbitrary point on
the beam are described with the aid of three coordinate According to Eqs. (10) and (11), the virtual work
systems as shown in Fig. 2: An inertial frame e0 , a of the inertia force is expressed as

oating frame eb and a local curvilinear frame ec .
The coordinate matrix of the displacement of an Wi = r T rdV = q T M q + q T Qm , (15)
V
arbitrary point with respect to e0 can be written as
where V represents the volume of the beam and is
r = r0 + A (s0 + A u ) = the mass density, q = [r0T pT ]T is the generalized
     
x0 X u coordinate of the system, and M , Qm are the general-
+ A + A , (8) ized mass and inertia force matrices which are given in
y0 Y v
Appendix.
where r0 represents the coordinate matrix of r0 dened Considering Eq. (11), the virtual work of the body
in e0 , s0 represent the coordinates of s0 dened in eb , force can be written as

and u represent the coordinate matrix of deformation
vector u of the point p which is dened in frame ec . A WF = r T f dV = q T QF , (16)
V
represents the transformation matrix of frame eb with
respect to frame e0 , and A represents the transforma- where f represents the body force vector dened in the
tion matrix of frame ec with respect to frame eb , which inertial frame, and QF represents the generalized body
are given by force vector, which is given in Appendix.
According to Eq. (12), Eqs. (5) and (6) can be writ-
   
cos sin cos sin ten as
A = , A = ,
sin cos sin cos = L + N + , (17)
063006-3 Geometric nonlinear formulation for curved beams Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2, 063006 (2012)

where, = (e11 2e12 )T and L = BL0 pe denote the Bracket

linear strain component, = BL pe represents curva-
Revolute
tures, and N = C/2 is the nonlinear strains. BL0 , joint
BL , C and are given by Output
of data
 
N  1 N2 /R
BL0 = ,
N  2 + N1 /R N3 Curved beam
  pasted with
N  3 strain chip
BL = , (18)
0
 
N  1 pe N  2 pe Fig. 3. Photograph of the experiment apparatus.
C= ,
0 0
  y0 Y
e0
N  1 Bracket eb
= Gpe = pe , (19) Gravity
N  2 Revolute x0
joint
O0 Xc1=50 cm
Tip mass
1 dNi Strain chip 1 Thickness
where N  i = i = 1, 2, 3. Xc2=25 cm
Je () d
Since C = C, according to Eqs. (17)(19), Strain chip 2
the variation of the Green strain can be written as
X
= (BL0 + C G) pe + BL pe . (20)
Fig. 4. Curved beam pendulum with tip mass.
Considering Eqs. (17) and (20), the virtual work of
the internal force considering geometric nonlinear eect
can be written as where Q = Qm + QF + Qs and represents the matrix
of Lagrange multipliers. Dynamic Eq. (24) is integrated
Win = DdV = q T Qs = q T [0 fsT ]T , by generalized- method which is given by Ref. 8.
V The dynamics of a curved beam pendulum with a
(21) tip mass which is linked with the bracket using a revo-
lute joint is studied in experiment, which can be seen in
where Figs. 3 and 4. The strain chips are pasted on the curved
Ne

 1  beam, the position of which can be found in Fig. 4, and
T the strain data can be obtained by those strain chips.
fs = BeT A (BL0 + C G)
e=1 1 The angular velocity of pendulum is measured by the
 oating frame and the inertial frame which can be seen
1
D BL0 + C G pe + in Fig. 4. The properties of curved beam with rectan-
2 gular cross section and initial condition are shown in

T Table 1.
IBL DBL pe d, (22)
In order to keep present simulating conditions con-
  sistent with those of experiment, the damping forces9
E 0 are considered in the simulating model. Figures 5(a)
D = , and A and I are area and inertia
0 GG
moment of curved beam cross section, respectively. If
terms C and G are ignored in the Eq. (22), the linear Table 1. Experiment parameter.
model can be obtained.
Parameter Parameter values
According to the principle of virtual work, the sum
of Eqs. (15), (16) and (21) leads to Arc length/m 0.80
Width/m 0.03
Wi + WF + Win = Thickness/m 0.002 5
q T (M q + Qm + QF + Qs ) = 0. (23) Density/(kg m3 ) 2 760.0
Considering constraints in systems and Eq. (23), the Poissons ratio 0.3
constrained multi-body system equations of motion are Elastic modulus/GPa 68.950
given by Radius of curved beam/m 0.85
     /rad 0.60
M q T q Q
= , (24) Tip mass/kg 0.060
q 0
063006-4 K. Q. Pan, and J. Y. Liu Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2, 063006 (2012)

and 5(b) show the comparison of the strain results ob- 10

-4

tained from experiment and present simulating model. 0.4 Experiment

It can be seen in Figs. 5(a) and 5(b) that the results ob-
tained by nonlinear model are in good agreement with 0
those obtained by experiment, however, there are sig-
-0.4

Strain 1
nicant dierences between the results obtained by lin-
ear simulating model and experiments. The reason is -0.8
that terms C and G related to nonlinear strain are ig-
nored in the linear model, therefore the accuracy of the -1.2
model can not be guaranteed. Figure 5(c) compares the
results of the angular velocity of the curved beam. As -1.6 Simulation(Nonlinear)
Simulation(Linear)
can be seen in Fig. 5(c), the results of measurement and 0 1 2 3 4 5
those of linear and nonlinear simulating model agree Time/s
well, which indicates that the inuence of nonlinear re- (aStrain at the first strain chip
lated terms C and G on the angular velocity is not
10
-4

obvious for the present experiment case. 0.1

Experiment
The circular and parabolic shaped curved beams are Simulation(Nonlinear)
0
both used in simulation examples.
The equation for the circular shaped curved beam -0.1
with the constant radius R is dened in oating frame

Strain 2
-0.2
as
 -0.3
y = R R2 x2 , 0 < x < R sin , (25)
-0.4
where is the subtended angle. -0.5 Simulation(Linear)
The equation for the parabolic shaped curved beam
with the non constant radius in oating frame is dened 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
as Time/s
bStrain at the second strain chip
y = 4dl2 x (x l) , 0 < x < l. (26)
6
Angular velocity/(rad . s-1)

Experiment
The properties of the beam are given as follows: 4
the mass density = 27 667 kg/m3 , the modulus of
elasticity E = 68.952 GPa, the cross-section area A = 2
8 105 m2 , and the moment of inertia I = 1.066 67
108 m2 . The curved beam is attached to a rotating 0

rigid hub with radius Rh = 0.05 m and the rotary in- -2

ertia Jh = 0.3 kg/m respectively. The length of the
beams are equal to 5/3 m, and the corresponding sub- -4
Simulation(Nonlinear)
tended angles are = 30 and = 60 , respectively. -6
Simulation(Linear)

The following torque drives the hub in the numerical 0 1 2

analysis
T = 10 sin (0 t) N m 0 t 2 s, (27)
where 0 = 2 rad/s.
The dynamic results of present nonlinear curved
beam model are compared with those obtained by the
straight beam elements. All the deformations are mea-
sured in the inertial coordinate system. The time his-
tories of the tip deformation of the curved beam with
= 60 are shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. It
can be seen in Fig. 6 that the longitudinal deformation
results obtained by straight beam elements and the re-
sults obtained by present nonlinear curved beam ele-
ment model are in good agreement, and the transverse
deformation results in Fig. 7 also coincide well, which
verify the correctness of present curved beam elements
and straight beam elements.
Although present curved beam and straight beam
elements have the same simulation results, as shown in
3 4 5 6
Time/s
cAngular velocity of pendulum
Fig. 5. Comparison of simulation results with those of ex-
periment.
Table 2, for curved beam with 30 and 60 , the conver-
gence results can be obtained just using at most 4 and
6 curved nite elements for present model, respectively;
however, at least 15 and 20 nite elements are needed to
converge for the straight beam elements. Furthermore,
as can be seen, for the cases of the same length of the
curved beams, the curved beam with larger curvature
(60 ) needs more elements to converge. Table 2 com-
pares the CPU time cost of the present curved beam el-
ements and straight beam approximation elements with
time step 0.001 s and end time 2 s. It can be seen that,
for the present curved beam element, 6 s and 12 s are
cost for simulating the curved beam with 30 and 60
063006-5 Geometric nonlinear formulation for curved beams Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2, 063006 (2012)

0.10
0.08 Straight beam element H2
Curved beam element
0.06
0.04 d
0.02 l
u/m

0
H3
-0.02 H1
-0.04
e0
-0.06
-0.08
-0.10 Fig. 8. Slider-crank with exible connecting rod.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0
Time/s
0.20
Linear
Fig. 6. The tip longitudinal deformation of the curved 0.15 Nonlinear
beam. 0.10
0.05
0.12 Straight beam element

u/m
0.10 Curved beam element 0
0.08
0.06 -0.05
0.04 -0.10
v/m

0.02
0 -0.15
-0.02
-0.20
-0.04 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
-0.06
Time/s
-0.08
-0.10
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0 Fig. 9. The longitudinal deformation of the middle point.
Time/s

Fig. 7. The tip transverse deformation of the curved beam.
subtended angle respectively, nevertheless, for straight
beam approximation elements, the corresponding sim-
ulation time are 70 s and 80 s, respectively.
A slider-crank mechanism is shown in Fig. 8. The
length of crank is 1 m, square cross-section areas of
the crank and the connecting rod are both given by
A = (0.02 0.02) m2 . The mass of the slider is 0.5 kg.
The crank is subjected to a prescribed rotational motion
dened by

where 0 = is the angular velocity of crank at the
steady-state stage, and ts = 0.5 s is the accelerating
time.
Figure 9 shows the linear and nonlinear dynamic
response of the mechanism with the curved connecting
rod of d = 1 m, l = 4 m. The deformations are mea-
sured in the local coordinate system. It is shown that
at the initial phase 00.35 s the linear and nonlinear re-
sults coincide. With the increase of the angular velocity
of the crank the vibration amplitude of the longitudi-
nal deformation of the middle point obtained by linear
model is becoming larger than that obtained by nonlin-
2 
  ear model, which can not explain the dynamic stiening

0 t2 ts 2t phenomenon. Inuenced by elastic deformation, obvi-

+ cos 1 ,

ts 2 2 ts ous dierences of angular velocity of the connecting rod



(0 t ts ) ,
(t) =


1.5

ts
0 t 2 ,


Linear


1.0 Nonlinear
(t < t t ) ,
/(rad . s-1)

s m
0.5
(28)
0

-0.5
Table 2. Time cost and element numbers comparison.
-1.0
Element number CPU Time/s
-1.5
Curved Straight Curved Straight 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
30 4 15 6 70 Time/s

60 8 20 12 80
Fig. 10. The angular velocity of the connecting rod.
063006-6 K. Q. Pan, and J. Y. Liu Theor. Appl. Mech. Lett. 2, 063006 (2012)

Ne

1 
can be found in Fig. 10.
Nonlinear strain-displacement relations for the Qr = A 2 (s0 + A N p)
e=1 1
plane curved beam with varying curvature are obtained
and the nonlinear dynamic equations for the curved 
beam multi-body systems are established. By physical
2 I A A N p Je () d,
experiments, the accuracy of present nonlinear rigid-
exible coupling formulation for curved beam with vary- Ne

1 

ing curvature is veried. Moreover, due to the neglect Q = 2 As0T A N +
of the nonlinear terms in linear model, obvious dier- e=1 1
ences can be found between the results obtained by lin- 
ear model and those obtained by experiment. Present  
pT AN T N + I NIT NI pJe () d,
curved beam element is more ecient than the straight
beam element. Considering geometric nonlinear eect
Ne

1 
is necessary in case of high rotating speed.
Qp = 2 N T AT 
s0 +
e=1 1

APPENDIX    !
AN T N + I NIT NI p 2N T I N p Je () d,

fr = ALs f ,
Mrr Mr Mrp
Ne

1  
M = Mr M Mp , T
f = (s0 + A N p) AT

T f Je () d,
I
Mp Mp Mpp e=1 1

Qr Ne

1  
fp = N T AT T
Qm = Q , A f Je () d,
e=1 1
Qp
 
fr N1 Be
where m is the mass of curved beam, N = ,
QF = f , (29) N2 Be
 
fp N3 Be
NI = , Ls is the arch length of curved beam,
where 0
  A is the area of the cross section, Ne is the total number
1 0 of curved beam elements.
Mrr = m ,
0 1
Ne

1 This work was supported by the Research Fund
Mr = AI A (s0 + A N p) Je ()d, for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China
e=1 1 (20100073110007) and the Key Project of National Natural
Science Foundation of China (11132007).
Ne

1
Mrp = AA A N Je ()d,
e=1 1

Ne

1 
T 1. H. Sugiyama, and Y. Suda, J. Multi-body Dyn. 221, 219
M = A (s0 + A N p) (s0 + A N p) + (2007).
e=1 1
2. A. A. Shabana, and L. G. Maqueda, Multibody Syst. Dyn. 20,
 239 (2008).
IpT NIT NI p Je () d, 3. P. Raveendranath, G. Singh, and G. V. Rao, Int. J. Numer.
Meth. Eng. 51, 85 (2001).
Ne

1  4. J. S. Wu, and L. K. Chiang, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng. 58,
T
Mp = A (s0 + A N p) IT A N + 1907 (2003).
e=1 1 5. J. H. Park, and J. H. Kim, J. Sound Vib. 228, 1017 (1999).
 6. K. Q. Pan, and J. Y. Liu, Acta Mech. Sin. 27, 1023 (2011).
7. O. A. Bauchau, and C. H. Hong, AIAA 1469 (1987).
IpT NIT IT NI Je () d,
8. A. Martin, and B. Olivier, Multibody Syst. Dyn. 18, 185
(2007).
Ne

1 9. J. W. Lee, H. W. Kim, and H. C. Ku, J. Sound Vib. 325, 722
 
Mpp = AN T N + I NIT NI Je () d, (2009).
e=1 1