SIMPLIFIED DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF SLENDER TAPERED THIN-WALLED TOWERS WITH ADDITIONAL MASS AND RIGIDITY

A linearly tapered, doubly symmetric thin-walled closed member, such as power-transmission towers and tourist towers, are often characterized by local variation in mass and/or rigidity, due to additional mass and rigidity. On the preliminary stage of design the closed-form solution is more effective than the finite element method. In order to propose approximate solutions, the discontinuous and local variation in mass and/or rigidity is treated continuously by means of a usable function proposed by Takabatake(1988, 1991, 1993). Thus, a simplified analytical method and approximate solutions for the free and forced transverse vibrations in linear elasticity are demonstrated in general by means of the Galerkin method. The solutions proposed here are examined from the results obtained using the Galerkin method and Wilson-theta method and from the results obtained using NASTRAN.