Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the study of the occurrence of flutter instability in slender prismatic structures of rectangular cross section. A two degree of freedom model is considered and its non dimensional formulation is derived so that a minimum number of non dimensional parameters governing the occurrence of flutter instability are put in evidence. A very good agreement has been obtained by comparing the results of the two degree of freedom model with the results available in the literature. The goal of this document is twofold: (i) to summarize the conditions for which slender structures with rectangular cross sections may get unstable by flutter under the action of steady wind conditions and (ii) to supply a broad collection of data in the form of ready-to-use tables or graphics covering a wide range of cases, that provide a basis for designers to predict the critical wind velocities at the onset of flutter instability.