Static and dynamic instability characteristics of curved laminates with internal damage subjected to follower loading

This article deals with the study of vibration, buckling, and dynamic instability characteristics in damaged cross-ply and angle-ply curved laminates under uniform, uniaxial follower loading, using finite element approach. First-order shear deformation theory is used to model the doubly curved panels and is formulated according to Sandars' first approximation. Damage is modelled using an anisotropic damage formulation. Analysis is carried out on plate and three types of curved panels to obtain vibration, buckling, and dynamic instability (flutter) behaviour. The effect of damage on natural frequency, critical buckling load, flutter load, and flutter frequency is studied. The results show that the introduction of damage influences the flutter characteristics of panels more profoundly than the free-vibration or buckling characteristics. The results also indicate that, compared to undamaged panels, heavily damaged panels show steeper deviations in stability characteristics than mildly damaged ones.

Singularities in Structural Optimization of the Ziegler Pendulum

Structural optimization of non-conservative systems with respect to stability criteria is a research area with important applications in fluid-structure interactions, friction-induced instabilities, and civil engineering. In contrast to optimization of conservative systems where rigorously proven optimal solutions in buckling problems have been found, for nonconservative optimization problems only numerically optimized designs have been reported. The proof of optimality in non-conservative optimization problems is a mathematical challenge related to multiple eigenvalues, singularities in the stability domain, and non-convexity of the merit functional. We present here a study of optimal mass distribution in a classical Ziegler pendulum where local and global extrema can be found explicitly. In particular, for the undamped case, the two maxima of the critical flutter load correspond to a vanishing mass either in a joint or at the free end of the pendulum; in the minimum, the ratio of the masses is equal to the ratio of the stiffness coefficients. The role of the singularities on the stability boundary in the optimization is highlighted, and an extension to the damped case as well as to the case of higher degrees of freedom is discussed.