The permanent rotations of a balanced non-autonomous gyrostat

The permanent rotations of a gyrostat about its fixed centre of gravity are investigated. It is assumed that the lines of action of the time-dependent gyrostatic momentum vector maintain a constant position in a reference system attached to the carrier body. It is shown that, if the total angular momentum of the gyrostat is non-zero, permanent rotations can only occur about its principal axes of inertia. In that case the gyrostatic momentum vector must be collinear with one of the principal axes of inertia of the gyrostat.     

Stability of steady rotations in the nonholonomic Routh problem

We have discovered a new first integral in the problem of motion of a dynamically symmetric ball, subject to gravity, on the surface of a paraboloid. Using this integral, we have obtained conditions for stability (in the Lyapunov sense) of steady rotations of the ball at the upmost, downmost and saddle point.      

Asymptotically uniform motions of a gyrostat about an inclined axis under potential and gyroscopic forces

The sufficient conditions for asymptotically uniform motions about an inclined axis to exist in the problem of the motion of a gyrostat under potential and gyroscopic forces are obtained using Lyapunov's first method.     

The limiting steady rotations of a body on a string with a suspension point on the axis of symmetry

The steady motions of an axisymmetrical rigid body suspended from a fixed base by a weightless undeformable rod or a non-twisting inextensible string are investigated. The case when the rod is fastened to the body at a point situated on its axis of dynamic symmetry is considered. All types of limiting equilibrium configurations which are possible when there is an unlimited increase in the angular velocity of rotation of the system about the vertical are analysed. Domains in which each type of limiting regular precession and permanent rotation can exist are constructed in the space of dimensionless parameters, and the nature of their asymptotic behaviour when the angular velocity increases is determined. The limiting motions which are possible in the case of suspension on a rod and impossible in the case of suspension on a string are investigated.     

Stability of equilibrium states in the Zhukovski case of heavy gyrostat using algebraic methods

We study the stability of the equilibrium points of a skew product system and analyze the possibility to construct a Lyapunov function by using a set of conserved quantities and solving an algebraic system. We apply the theoretical results to study the stability of an equilibrium state of a heavy gyrostat in the Zhukovski case. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The stability of the steady motion of a gyrostat with a liquid in a cavity

A symmetrical rigid body with a spherical base, carrying a rotor and having a cavity in the shape of an ellipsoid of revolution, completely filled with an ideal incompressible liquid in uniform vortex motion, is moving along an absolutely rough plane. It is shown that this system admits of an energy integral, Jellett's integral, the integral of constant vorticity and a geometric integral. The construction of a Lyapunov function as a linear combination of first integrals [1] yields the sufficient conditions for the rotation of the gyrostat about the vertically positioned axis of symmetry to be stable. The conditions for the gyrostat's rotation to be unstable are found. It is shown that the rotor may prove to have either a stabilizing or destabilizing effect on the system and that the gyrostat admits of motions of the type of regular precession. The sufficient conditions for the stability of these motions are obtained.     

The steady motions of a gyrostat suspended on a rod in a central gravitational field

The problem of the existence, stability and bifurcation of the steady motions of two bodies in an orbital tethered system, when one of the bodies is a symmetrical satellite with a rotor on the axis of symmetry, is considered. One-parameter families of steady motions are indicated, and their stability and bifurcations are investigated. The conditions which relate the parameters of the system for which stabilization of the families obtained is possible using a rotating rotor are obtained.     

The global stability of the steady rotations of a solid

The dynamical Euler equations describing the motion of a non-symmetrical solid about the centre of mass in the field of a constant external moment and a dissipative one are considered. It is assumed that the external moment specified with respect to axes attached to the body acts about the intermediate central axis of inertia of the body. The conditions for global asymptotic stability as well as the stability in total of steady rotations of the solid are obtained.     

Stability of principal components

In this article we deal with the problem of stability of the conclusions from principal components analysis over repeated samples. We define a measure of stability for each component and investigate some of the measures properties. We then obtain the maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) of the measures, and derive their joint limiting distributions. The MLEs of the measures turn out to be asymptotically unbiased and jointly have the multivariate normal distribution. Modified estimators are also found to reduce the amount of bias in the MLEs. To facilitate interpretation of the measures we define stability confidence level as coverage probability, and associate with each measure a stability confidence level to describe the measure in terms of probability. Finally, we investigate the stability of the components via a simulation study and compare the performance of the MLEs and the modified estimators in terms of bias and precision. This work was sponsored by a grant from the Office of Vice-President for Research at Kuwait University under project number SS049.     

Viscous flow in a slowly varying tube which rotates about its axis

Viscous flow in tubes is of especial interest when swirl is present. In environments of decaying swirl, in particular, remarkable fluid phenomena have been observed.In this paper the problem studied is that of steady viscous flow in a long tube, of slowly-varying cross-section, which rotates about its axis with constant angular velocity . To examine the modification to the axial pressure gradient due to the variation of swirl with axial distance, approximate solutions to the governing equations are obtained by use of regular perturbation theory. The analysis is valid for values of the swirl ratio , up togl=O(1/), where is the small parameter in terms of which the solution is expanded and , the rate of volume flow. A number of interesting features of the fluid motion are identified and detailed results are presented for four shapes of wall profile.     

Stability of a steady flow guided by flexible walls

Flexible channels conveying fluid may loose stability by divergence or flutter, thus leading to undesirable dynamic behaviour. A lot of investigations have already been done on this subject, each involving structural models expressing a specific type of stiffness. The aim of this contribution is to investigate and compare systematically the influence of various types of structural stiffness on the stability behaviour of the coupled problem. Therefore, a simple, yet general model is built. The fluid is bounded by a rigid and an elastical supported, flexible wall, which exhibits bending and extensional stiffness and considers effects of pre-load. The influence of the various characteristics on the stability of the steady state is discussed and a perturbation approach is used to investigate the influence of small nonlinearities. (© 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Stability of stationary rotations of multidimensional rigid body

It is well known that rotations of a free three-dimensional rigid body around the long and short axes of inertia are stable, while the rotation around the intermediate axis is unstable. We generalize this result to the case of a rigid body in a space of arbitrary dimension.     

The orbital motion of a tetrahedral gyrostat

The orbital motion of a gyrostat whose mass distribution admits of the symmetry group of a regular tetrahedron is examined. The equations of motion and their first integrals are presented. The order of the equations of motion is reduced using a Routh–Lyapunov approach. The reduced potential and the equations for its critical points are presented. Some solutions of these equations are indicated, and a mechanical interpretation of the steady motions corresponding to them is given. Equations of motion similar to the well known equations of relative motion of a gyrostat in an elliptical orbit in the satellite approximation are derived assuming that the dimensions of the body are small compared with its distance from the attracting centre. A three-dimensional analogue of Beletskii's equation that relies on the use of the true anomaly as the independent variable is presented. Three classes of steady configurations are determined by Routh's method in the case of a circular orbit, and the conditions for their stability are investigated.     

Invariant manifolds of maps close to a product of rotations: close to the rotation axis

We consider families of maps depending on a parameter ε such that for ε=0 the map becomes a product of linear rotations in and for ε≠0 the map is weakly attracting in the product of the rotation planes and weakly repelling in some complementary subspace. We prove that the unstable manifold converges to the complementary subspace in the C^r topology, the case r=∞ included. We consider both the local and the global manifolds. For that we prove some results on families of maps near a norm one linear map, which are of independent interest.     

Stability for steady states of Navier-Stokes-Poisson equations

In this paper, we study the stationary solution and nonlinear stability of Navier-Stokes-Poisson equations. Using variational method, we construct steady states of the N-S-P system as minimizers of a suitably defined energy functional, then show their dynamical stability against general, i.e. not necessarily spherically symmetric perturbation.     

Conservative methods of controlling the rotation of a gyrostat

A method for shaping the control of the rotation of a gyrostat consisting of a rigid body, within which there are three rotors rotating about non-coplanar axes rigidly connected to the body, is discussed. The state of the system is defined by the position and angular velocity of rotation of the body, as well as by the angular velocities of the rotors. Control is achieved by torques applied to the rotors. The idea behind the proposed control method is to choose the controlling torques so that the angular velocities of rotation of the rotors are linear functions of the components of the angular velocity vector of the body. The linear dependence thus specified defines a 3 × 3 matrix, that is, a “controlled inertia tensor.” This matrix, which is specified by the parameters of the control selected, does not necessarily have the properties of an inertia tensor. As a result of such a choice of controls, the equations that define the variation of the angular velocity of the body are written in a form similar to Euler's dynamical equations. The system of equations obtained is used to formulate and solve problems of controlling the angular motion of a satellite in a circular orbit. The proposed method for constructing controlling actions enables both the Lagrangian structure of the equations of motion and the fundamental symmetries of the problem to be maintained. Expressions for the torques acting on the rotors and realizing the motion of the required classes are written in explicit form.     

Instability of the equilibrium position of a heavy sphere in a steady non-uniform potential flow

A theorem on the instability of any equilibrium position of a heavy sphere of finite radius in an arbitrary steady potential nonuniform flow of an ideal fluid is proved.     

Stability of non-isothermal phase transitions in a steady van der Waals flow

This paper is concerned with the multidimensional stability of non-isothermal subsonic phase transitions in a steady supersonic flow of van der Waals type. For the sake of seeking physical admissible planar waves, the viscosity–capillarity criterion (Slemrod in Arch Ration Mech Anal 81(4):301–315, 1983) is chosen to be the admissible criterion. By showing the Lopatinski determinant being non-zero, we prove that subsonic phase transitions are uniformly stable in the sense of Majda (Mem Am Math Soc 41(275):1–95, 1983) under both one-dimensional and multidimensional perturbations.