Flutter of a cantilever rod with a relocatable lumped mass Original Research Article

The dynamic stability of a cantilever rod modeled as an Euler beam with an arbitrarily located lumped mass is investigated in this work. The rod is subjected to a follower thrust at the free end. The effect of the presence of slight internal damping on the critical flutter load with respect to the variation in the location of the lumped mass is examined. It is found that an abrupt variation in the critical flutter load may occur with a slight variation in the location of the lumped mass for a rod without damping. Such a variation is less pronounced with the presence of slight internal damping.