Stability analysis of a tangentially loaded column with a maxwell type viscoelastic foundation

Summary The stability of a uniform cantilever column supported by a Maxwell type viscoelastic foundation and subjected to a constant tangential force is investigated. Stability conditions are obtained for the entire range of system parameters through an application of Routh-Hurwitz criteria. Unlike the case of conservative loading, the Maxwell foundation is shown to produce a stabilizing effect on this nonconservative problem. Furthermore, an optimum combination of foundation parameters exist to yield the maximum flutter load. An approximate analysis is also presented through an application of the Galerkin's method. It is shown that a two-term approximation may not be adequate to yield meaning-ful results in a certain range of system parameters.With 6 Figures