Nonlinear dynamics and forced vibrations of simply-supported fractional viscoelastic microbeams using a fractional differential quadrature method

In this paper, free and forced nonlinear vibrations of fractional viscoelastic microbeams are modeled based on Euler-Bernoulli theory, the Von Karman's nonlinear strain relations, the modified couple stress theory (MCST), and the fractional Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic model. In the present work, the nonlinear-fractional order governing equations are discretized in the space domain by Galerkin's method. Two different approaches are introduced to solve the resulting nonlinear fractional-order Duffing equation in the time domain. In the first approach, a time marching fractional finite difference method is presented to compute the transient time response starting from the initial conditions. This approach is time consuming if the frequency-amplitude curves of steady state response are required since it provides just one point on the frequency-amplitude curve. More importantly, this approach usually converges only for the stable branch with smallest amplitude of frequency-amplitude curve. In the second approach, we introduce a novel fractional differential quadrature method (FDQM) to discretize the fractional Duffing equation and apply a pseudo-arc length algorithm to directly construct the frequency-amplitude curves. Effects of the fractional-order, linear and nonlinear viscoelasticity coefficients, viscous damping parameter, microstructure parameters, and the micro-beam thickness on the nonlinear dynamics of the viscoelastic micro-beam are analyzed numerically. Numerical results show that each of these parameters can change natural frequency and/or the damping behavior of the structure. The present model can be used for designing and analyzing the nonlinear microstructure viscoelastic beam under dynamic loads.