Vibration of thin pre-twisted helical beams

A helical beam has non-zero curvature and tortuosity. When there is a pre-twist, the Frenet triad is not necessary coincident with the principal triad. When an initially straight rod undergoing a large deformation, it will be curved and twisted during each deformation sequence. The purpose of the paper is to establish the governing equations and the associated natural boundary conditions for a pre-twisted helical beam by variational principles and differential geometry. Although circular helix is taken as example, the formulation is valid for inhomogeneous and non-uniform parameters along the centerline that variable curvature and tortuosity can be treated without difficulties. The method can be used to treat helical anisotropy. If the pre-twist rate of a ring is 0.5, we show a thick Möbius ring for the first time. The solution of the natural vibration problem is through Chebyshev discretization and Clenshaw–Curtis integration by means of the Galerkin formulation.