A comparative study of the eigenvalue solutions for mass-loaded beams under classical boundary conditions

A comparative study of the eigenfrequency analysis for an Euler–Bernoulli beam carrying a concentrated mass at an arbitrary location is presented in this short note. The dimensionless frequency equation for different combinations of classical boundary conditions is obtained by satisfying the differential equations of motion and by imposing the corresponding boundary and compatibility conditions. Two formulation methods have been commonly used for the boundary-value problem. One is to adopt a single frame originated from the beam's left-end, while another is by dual frames associated with the concentrated mass. It is found that the forms derived by dual frames are more compact than the corresponding expressions by using the single frame. Nevertheless, the comparison for all the cases shows that the dual-frame expressions need more time to obtain the same set of eigenvalues if compared with the time by using the single-frame expressions.