The dynamic behaviour of a simple clamped beam suspended at the other end by an inclined cable stay is surveyed in this paper. The sag due to the cable weight, as well as the non-linear coupling between the cable and the beam motions are taken into account. The formulation for in-plane vibration follows closely that of Gattulli et al. [1] and confirms their findings for the overall features of the equations of motion and the system modal properties. A reduced non-linear mathematical model, with two degrees of freedom, is also developed, following again the steps of Gattulli and co-authors [2,3]. Hamilton’s Principle is evoked to allow for the projection of the displacement field of both the beam and the cable onto the space defined by the first two modes, namely a “global” mode (beam and cable) and a “local” mode (cable). The method of multiple scales is then applied to the analysis of the reduced equations of motion, when the system is subjected to the action of a harmonic loading. The steady-state solutions are characterised in the case of internal resonance between the local and the global modes, plus external resonance with respect to either one of the modes considered. A numerical application is presented, for which multiple-scale results are compared with those of numerical integration. A reasonable qualitative and quantitative agreement is seen to happen particularly in the case of external resonance with the higher mode. Discrepancies should obviously be expected due to strong non-linearities present in the reduced equations of motion. That is specially the case for external resonance with the lower mode.
Reduced Equations of Motion for Generalized Fluxes and Forces in the Continued-Fraction Expansion