Vibration of a Segmented Rod

This paper presents the governing equation of motion, boundary conditions and exact vibration frequencies of a segmented rod where the segments are connected by hinges with elastic rotational springs of constant stiffness. The mass of each segment is assumed to be evenly distributed along the length of the rod. Another discrete model called Hencky bar-chain model (short for HBM; which is equivalent to the finite difference model for discretizing continuous rod) assumes the rod mass to be lumped at the ends instead and a different set of boundary conditions are adopted clamped end. The vibration results of a clamped-clamped segment rod are compared with those of the HBM. It is shown that the HBM underestimates the vibration frequencies when compared to the segmented rod model for a finite number of segments while both models furnish vibration solutions that converge to the solutions of Euler beam for infinitely large number of segments.