Abstract
Aerospace structures are so-called subjected to follower force due to the thrust produced by jet and rocket motor. There forces are nonconservative, and may cause the structures to looses stability by flutter. This paper considers "prototype problem" of Beck's column, which is a cantilevered column subjected to a follower force at its free end. We consider the optimum design problem of determining the mass distribution which maximizes the critical load under the constraint of constant volume of the column. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the problems which arise when optimizing the continuous model(such as coalescence eigenvalue), we consider a system of articulated rods as an approximation to the continuous column. The aim is the determine how the optimum mass and spring stiffness distribution depends on the number of articulations, and how the eigenvalue branches develop as the number of articulations are increased.
