Some recent stability results for beams with intermediate piers

We deal with nonlinear fourth-order evolution equations describing the dynamics of beams with one or more intermediate piers. We study the role of the geometry of the structure (that is, of the position of the piers), as well as the effect of a nonhomogeneous density, in the (linear) stability of bi-modal solutions. The analysis gives some evidence that both the asymmetry and the nonhomogeneity reinforce the structure