Bending of a Viscoelastic Timoshenko Cracked Beam Based on Equivalent Viscoelastic Spring Models

Considering the transverse crack as a massless viscoelastic rotational spring, the equivalent stiffness of the viscoelastic cracked beam is derived by Laplace transform and the generalized Dirac delta function. Using the standard linear solid constitutive equation and the inverse Laplace transform, the analytical expressions of the deflection and rotation angle of the viscoelastic Timoshenko beam with an arbitrary number of open cracks are obtained in the time domain. By numerical examples, the bending results of the analytical expressions are verified with those of the FEM program. Additionally, the effects of the time, slenderness ratio, and crack depth on the bending deformations of the different cracked beam models are revealed.