Free vibration analysis of elastically supported Timoshenko columns with attached masses by transfer matrix and finite element methods

This paper deals with the free vibration of Timoshenko columns with attached masses having rotary inertia. The support of the model is elastically restrained against rotation. The concept of fixity factor is used to define the stiffness of the elastic connection relative to that of the column. The governing equation of the column elements is solved by applying the separation of variables method in the transfer matrix method (TMM) algorithm. The same problems are solved, also, by finite element method (FEM) algorithm in which the matrices in equation of motion are obtained for Timoshenko column, and the results are compared with the ones of TMM. The comparison graphs are presented in numerical analysis to show the effectiveness of the considered methods, and it is resulted that FEM gives closer results to TMM.