Forced responses of cracked cantilever beams subjected to a concentrated moving load

An analytical method is developed to present the dynamic response of a cracked cantilever beam subject to a concentrated moving load. The cracked beam system is modeled as a two-span beam and each span of the continuous beam is assumed to obey Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. The crack is modeled as a rotational spring with sectional flexibility. Considering the compatibility requirements on the crack, the relationships between these two spans can be obtained. By using the analytical transfer matrix method, eigensolutions of this cracked system are obtained explicitly. The forced responses can be obtained by the modal expansion theory using the determined eigenfunctions. Some numerical results are shown to present the crack effects (crack extent, location of the crack) and are studied for different speeds of the moving load.