ON THE ROTATING ROD WITH SHEAR AND EXTENSIBILITY

The problem of determining the stability boundary and post-critical be havior of a heavy rotating rod is studied. Generalized constitutive eq uations are used so that both extensibility of the rod axis and the in fluence of shear stresses are taken into account. It is shown that, at the eigenvalues of the linearized equations the rod could exhibit bot h sub-and super-critical bifurcation patterns. An extremum variational principle for the system of equations describing the rod configuratio n is constructed and used for obtaining approximate solutions of the e quilibrium shapes. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.