Abstract
The dynamic instability characteristics of rectangular plates with at least one free edge and subjected to non-conservative follower loading at the free edge has been studied by using the finite element formulation. The loading is distributed partially at the centre of the free edge. The modal transformation is applied to the resulting equilibrium equation for subsequent analysis. Structural damping is introduced into the system in terms of equivalent viscous damping. The effects of load bandwidth, plate aspect ratio, direction control parameter, damping, etc., on the stability behaviour of the plates are studied. The results show that the load bandwidth has a significant effect on the dynamic instability characteristics of the plates. The results also show that, under follower loading, the system is susceptible to instability due to flutter alone or due to both flutter and divergence, depending upon the system parameters. Structural damping may significantly reduce the critical flutter loads of the plates.
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