Vibration of Straight and Curved Beam Coupled Systems

This paper presents an analytical method for in-plane and out-of-plane coupled vibration in thin curved panels which are commonly seen in the side structure of railway vehicle carbodies. To treat such coupled vibrations simply, a structure consist of combination of straight and curved beams is introduced. The analytical procedure to derive the equation of motion is described in this paper. Numerical result shows that the straight and curved beam coupled system (SCBS) can successfully express the coupling effect between roof-floor relative vertical displacement and side panel’s lateral deformation. The effect of lateral deformation of cantrail and side beam and curvature of the curved beams on the forced response are discussed.