Investigation of the Stability of Axially Moving Beams With Discrete Masses

Abstract The present paper addresses axially moving beams with co-moving concentrated masses while undergoing large deformations. For the numerical modeling, a novel beam finite element is introduced, which is based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation extended with an additional Eulerian coordinate to represent the axial motion. The resulting formulation is well known as Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) method, which is often used for axially moving beams and pipes conveying fluids. As compared to previous formulations, the present formulation allows us to introduce the Eulerian part by an independent coordinate, which fully incorporates the dynamics of the axial motion, while the shape functions remain independent of the beam coordinates and are thus constant. The proposed approach, which is derived from an extended version of Lagrange’s equations of motion, allows for the investigation of the stability of axially moving beams for a certain axial velocity and stationary state of large deformation. A multibody modeling approach allows us to extend the beam formulation for co-moving discrete masses, which represent concentrated masses attached to the beam, e.g., gondolas in ropeway systems, or transported masses in conveyor belts. Within numerical investigations we show that a larger number of discrete masses behaves similarly as the case of (continuously) distributed mass along the beam.