The stability of a specific class of mechanical systems

A special class of mechanical systems is considered, the linearized equations of which either belong to the class of time-varying systems, reducible to stationary systems using constructive Lyapunov transformations or to systems close to these. A method of decomposing of the matrices of a system, which differs from the traditional method, is proposed for investigating of the stability of motion. It is shown that the conclusions concerning the stability are more complete in the case of this decomposition of the system matrix. A number of problems on the stability of motion of various mechanical systems is considered as examples.