The lateral vibrations of bars of variable section

Abstract

The present investigation, though strictly mathematical in character, arose in connection with a suggestion, put forward by Prof. A. Dendy and the present author in another paper communicated to the Society, that the siliceous deposits found on certain sponge spicules occurred at nodes of the spicules, regarded as vibrating rods. These vibrations, being set up and maintained by the impact of currents of water on the spicules, are necessarily of the lateral type. For the detailed examination of such a suggestion, it is necessary to obtain a comprehensive account of the positions of the funda­mental nodes on a free-free bar, as dependent on the law of variation of its cross-section. The present paper contains, in fact, the formal analysis whose results were quoted without proof in the other paper. This analysis is of considerable generality, as will appear, and the particular examples selected for purposes of illustration, together with the manner in which the variable cross-section is dealt with, have been determined by the requirements of the biological application already mentioned. One general problem is in view throughout the work, and it may be stated as follows