• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2009

In this paper, the effect of the position and size of a lumped mass on the structural stability of a high speed underwater vehicle is presented. For simplicity, a real vehicle was modeled as a follower force subjected beam that was resting on an elastic foundation, and the lumped mass effect was simplified as an elastic intermediate support. The stability of the simplified model was numerically analyzed based on the Finite element method (FEM). This numerical simulation revealed that flutter type instability or divergence type instability occurs, depending on the position and stiffness of the elastic intermediate support, which implies that the instability of the real model is affected by the position and size of the lumped mass.