Analysis of free vibrations of a continuous-discrete system with damping

In this paper a generalized exact method of solving the problem of beam free vibrations with a discrete rigid body attached to the beam by means of viscoelastic constraints was presented. The vibrations of such a discrete-continuous system were described by a set of coupled partial and ordinary differential equations. Separation of the variables and the obtained results of the boundary-value problem, as well as the proved generalized orthogonality of complex eigenmodes, were used to the analysis of free vibrations of the system with arbitrary initial conditions.