Flutter of systems with many freedoms

Experience has shown that it is often necessary to retain many degrees of freedom in order to calculate critical flutter speeds reliably, but this entails much labour. Part 1 discusses the choice of a minimum set of freedoms and suggests that this should be based on the equation of energy and the use of the Lagrangian dynamical equation corresponding to any proposed additional freedom. The method for conducting flutter calculations so as to minimise labour are treated in Part 2.