Multi-level residue harmonic balance solution for the nonlinear natural frequency of axially loaded beams with an internal hinge

In this article, an analytical approach, namely, multi-level residue harmonic balance is introduced and developed for the nonlinear free vibration analysis of axially loaded beams with an internal hinge. The main advantage of this method is that only one set of nonlinear algebraic equations is required to be solved for obtaining the zero level solution while the high accuracy of the higher level solutions can be obtained by solving a set of linear equations. The new approximate analytical solution method is developed for solving the governing differential equations. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method are verified by a numerical method. In the comparison, the results obtained from the proposed method well agree with those from other methods. The effects of vibration amplitude, axial force, and hinge location on the fundamental frequencies of various beam cases are investigated. The optimum and worst hinge locations are also studied.