Dynamic Stability of Periodic Pipes Conveying Fluid

In this paper, the stability of a periodic cantilevered pipe conveying fluid is studied theoretically by means of a novel transfer matrix method. This method is first validated by comparing the results to those available in the literature for a uniform pipe, showing that it is capable of high accuracy and displaying good convergence characteristics. Then, the stability of periodic pipes is investigated, with geometric, material-properties periodicity, and a combination of the two, showing that a considerable stabilizing effect may be achieved over different ranges of the mass parameter beta (beta = m(f)/(m(f) + m(p) ), where m(f) and m(p) are the fluid and pipe masses per unit length). The effect of other different system parameters is also probed.