Free Vibration Analysis of Cylindrical Shells Supported on Parts of the Edges

Abstract

Numerical studies of the free vibration analysis of open skewed circular cylindrical shells supported only on selected segments of the straight edges are presented in this paper. The uniform thickness shell geometry is defined by the radius, subtended angle and the length, all with reference to the middle surface. The open skewed circular cylindrical shell is modeled by dividing the reference surface into few patches and introducing upon them displacement nodal points and also five degrees of freedom in accordance with the first order shear deformable shell theory are assigned to each of these nodal points. The free vibration analysis of the shell structure is performed using two types of interpolating polynomials, viz. simple high order algebraic and Bezier, respectively. The number of nodal points per patch determines the order of the displacement polynomials. As a consequence considerably high-order polynomials are used in computations for the accurately converged results. Convergence studies are carried out to validate the method for cases in which the skewed cylindrical shell is supported only on the third of each of the two straight edges. Additionally, the performance of the present method is assessed and discussed by comparing frequency results with those from standard finite element methods using linear and parabolic quadrilateral elements.