The Stability of a Flexible Vertical Rod on a Vibrating Support

Abstract

The classical Kapitsa problem of the inverted flexible pendulum is generalized. We consider a thin homogeneous vertical rod with a free top end and pivoted or rigid attached lower end under the weight of the pendulum’s action and vertical harmonic vibrations of the support. In both cases of attachment, we have stability conditions for the vertical rod position. We take the influence of axial and bending rod vibrations and describe the bending vibrations using the Bernoulli–Euler beam model. The solution is built as a Fourier expansion by eigenfunctions of auxiliary boundary-value problems. As a result, the problem is reduced to the set of ordinary differential equations with periodic coefficients and a small parameter. The asymptotic method of two-scale expansions is used for its solution and to determine the critical level of vibration. The influence of longitudinal waves in the rod essentially decreases the critical load. The single-mode approximation has an acceptable accuracy. With pivoting support at the lower end of the rod, we find the explicit approximate solution. For the rigid attachment, we conduct numerical analysis of the critical level of vibrations depending on the problem parameters.