Physical mechanism of the destabilizing effect of damping in continuous non-conservative dissipative systems

The paper attempts to give a physical explanation of the mechanism behind the so-called destabilizing effect of small internal damping in the dynamic stability of Beck's column. Both internal (material) and external (viscous fluid) damping are considered. An energy equation is derived for the balance between the work done by the non-conservative ‘follower force’ and the energy dissipated by the internal and external damping forces. Evaluated at the critical load, where a flutter instability is initiated, this equation explicitly shows the influence of damping upon flutter frequency, phase angle, and vibration amplitude. The gradient of the phase angle, evaluated at the free end of the column, is found to be the ‘valve’, which controls how much work the follower force can do on the column during each period of oscillation. And a large change in this gradient with increasing—but still small—internal damping is found to be responsible for the destabilizing effect.