Free vibration analysis of an aluminum beam coated with imperfect and damaged functionally graded material.

In this paper, the free vibration of an aluminum beam coated with imperfect and damaged functionally graded material is investigated. The imperfections consist of porosities, while 4 evenly distributed cracks represent the damage profile. A polynomial function is used to vary the density and elasticity through the thickness of the coating, while the effective elastic modulus and density are found with classical lamination theory. To achieve a truthful modeling, the gradually changing mechanical properties of the coating are modeled with 25 layers of material. The individual layers are isotropic and homogeneous. Numerical solutions are found with the finite element method using Timoshenko beam elements. MATLAB is used to write a finite element code, and the beam natural frequencies are found. To show the influences of porosity, crack depth, coating thickness and the polynomial function index (n) on the natural beam frequencies, a parametric study is conducted. It was found that the natural frequency values were significantly affected by the studied parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]