The Vibration of Cantilever Beams of Fiber Reinforced Material

Experimental results were obtained for the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of graphite-epoxy and boron-epoxy composite materials having fiber orientations of 0°, 15° , 30° and 90° with respect to cantilever beam axes. Certain elastic constants were experimentally determined and used in a programmed numerical solution in which rotary inertia, trans verse shear, and coupled bending-torsion effects were included. The experi mental results for the 15° and 30° beams gave a clear indication of the interaction between bending and twisting and good agreement was obtained with the numerical results.