On the stabilization of a flexible beam with a tip mass

Abstract

We study the stability of a flexible beam that is clamped at one end and free at the other; a mass is also attached to the free end of the beam. To stabilize this system we apply a boundary control force at the free end of the beam. We prove that the closed-loop system is well-posed and is exponentially stable. We then analyze the spectrum of the system for a special case and prove that the spectrum determines the exponential decay rate for the considered case.