The vibrations of a random elastic string: the method of integral equations

Abstract

The theory of Fredholm integral equations is applied to the problem of determining the natural frequencies of transverse vibrations of a tightly stretched elastic string whose mass per unit length varies with position in a stationary random manner. Upper and lower bounds for the statistical moments of the frequencies are given in terms of corresponding moments and appropriate correlation functions for the random linear density. The adequacy of the bounds decreases for the higher frequencies. Extensions to more general random boundary value problems are also indicated.