Dynamics of flexible sliding beams - Non-linear analysis part II: Transient response

In this paper the axially rigid sliding beam problem undergoing small deformations is examined first, its governing equation and boundary conditions transformed to the fixed domain and the well known Galerkin's approach used to study the transient response of this problem. The results obtained are then compared with those in the literature. Subsequently the authors' approach is extended to the non-linear, axially inextensible sliding beams undergoing large amplitude vibrations and solve several examples to show the differences between the solutions obtained via linear and non-linear servers. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.