A Ranjbaran - Associated Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
H Roosta - PhD Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Analysis and damage detection of cracked members are important in civil, mechanical and aerospace engineering. Innovative methods for free vibration analysis of cracked members, the equivalent mass method (EMM) and the stiffness reduction method (SRM)is proposed. In EMM the crack is replaced by an equivalent mass and great accuracy and simplicity is obtained. It is an excellent method for free vibration analysis of cracked members. For the static, dynamic and buckling analysis of cracked members and frames the SRM is proposed. The paper is managed as follows. The introduction in the first section is followed by presenting the mathematical basis in section two. The document is continued by verification through analysis of typical examples and comparison with the results of the others in section three. Section four contains the conclusions from the study and recommendations for further work

Cracked members, closed form solution, finite element analysis, EMM, SRM