Dynamic Stability and Responses of Beams on Elastic Foundations Under a Parametric Load

This paper is concerned with numerical simulation of both dynamic stability and responses of beams on elastic foundations under a pulsating axial parametric load in a single matrix method. First, the equation of motion of a beam on an elastic foundation with damping is derived and decoupled into a Mathieu–Hill equation. Three different elastic foundations are considered and compared: Winkler, Pasternak, and Hetenyi models. Then a novel numerical simulation algorithm is proposed to investigate both the dynamic stability and the responses of the beam simultaneously. Accurate instability diagrams are obtained by the numerical simulation and are substantiated by vibration response curves obtained from the same method. These numerically accurate diagrams are used to calibrate the approximate instability boundaries of various orders of Hill infinite determinants from the classical Bolotin method for the first time. A detailed discussion is presented on effects of various aspects including elastic foundation models, damping, and static and dynamic loads. The results provide insights into the efficient and safe application of beams on elastic foundations in engineering. The proposed numerical method can be extended to analyze dynamic stability and vibrations of systems under arbitrary parametric excitations where Mathieu–Hill equations are involved.