Free vibration analysis of a cracked cantilever beam with two types of additional substructure attachment is investigated using ANSYS program. The cantilever beam is used as a master structure with single substructure attachment in various locations (as 1-DOF mass attachment and 1-DOF mass-spring attachment) with influence of crack in different location and depths. The results for the changes of the natural frequencies of a cracked beam are compared with the results produced by Vahit et al [1]. So the same geometrical properties have been studied. In additional work a cracked beam carrying two types of substructure attachment are compared with the results of the beam without a crack and with multi crack depth. In all calculations the beam has a uniform cross-section and the crack was modeled by reduction in the modulus of the beam. The reducing effects of the cracked beam on the natural frequencies had been more apparent with the substructure attached to the beam in different situations. The effect of mass-spring substructure is larger than the effect of the attachment when modeled as mass substructure for the same mass, with 17% for the first natural frequency and 2% for the second and third natural frequencies. The results can be used to identify cracks in simple beam structure; cracks have a clearer decreasing impact on the natural frequencies.
Composite laminate plates, fabricated by bonding fiber–reinforced layers, were dynamically analyzed under different combinations of number of layers, type of cutout, hole dimensions, angle of lamination and type of dynamic loading . This work was achieved by the well–known engineering software (ANSYS). The toughness of composite plates was evaluated in terms of the normal stress in the direction of loading at the periphery of the cutout. The toughness was found to increase by increasing the number of layers, by setting the lamination angle at around 40o,by selecting hole dimensions to width of plate ratio of around 0.4 and by employing square cutouts or avoiding triangular cutouts. Also, composite plates were found to be more strain-rate-sensitive in ramp loading, with least number of layers and with triangular type of cutout.