The vibration of a rotating heavy non-uniform thread and its stability

Abstract

The linear vibration of a heavy non-uniform thread is investigated for different boundary conditions at the ends and taking an arbitrary additional tension into account. The thread is assumed to be ideal and inextensible and the motion takes place in a plane which may rotate about the vertical axis at constant angular velocity. A general scheme for solving the initial- and boundary value problem is proposed. Attention is focused mainly on the effective computation of the natural frequencies and mode of vibration. Given specific parametric types of mass distribution for the thread, sufficiently complete families of solutions describing the principal modes of vibration are constructed. Based on these families, stability and instability domains are constructed effectively, in terms of the system parameters, for a plane vibration of a rotating heavy thread subject to concentrated tension. New mechanical effects, of possible interest in practice, are observed and discussed.