Free vibrations of cylindrical shells with elastic-support boundary conditions

This paper concerns the free vibrations of cylindrical shells with elastic boundary conditions. Based on the Flügge classical thin shell theory, the equations of motion for the cylindrical shells are solved by the method of wave propagations. The wave numbers are obtained by directly solving an eighth order equation. The elastic-support boundary conditions can be arbitrarily specified in terms of 8 independent sets of distributed springs. All the classical homogeneous boundary conditions can be considered as the special cases when the stiffness for each set of springs is equal to either infinity or zero. The present solutions are validated by the results previously given by other researchers and/or obtained using finite element models. The effects on the frequency parameters of elastic restraints are investigated for shells of different geometrical characteristics.     

Free vibrations of circular cylindrical shells

The finite element method is used to predict the dynamic behaviour of circular cylindrical shells in free vibrations. A suitable shape function for the circumferential displacement distribution has been proposed. This reduces the three-dimensional character of the problem to a two-dimensional one. The simultaneous iteration method to determine the eigen-frequencies and eigenvectors is utilised for solving the eigenvalue problem. The accuracy of the method has been checked by verifying the results of known cases. Finally an experimental shell structure containing elastic rings welded at the ends has also been analysed and the experimental results compared with the theoretical ones.     

Nonlinear vibrations of clamped-free circular cylindrical shells

Only experimental studies are available on large-amplitude vibrations of clamped-free shells. In the present study, large-amplitude nonlinear vibrations of clamped-free circular cylindrical shell are numerically investigated for the first time. Shells with perfect and imperfect shape are studied. The Sanders-Koiter nonlinear shell theory is used to calculate the elastic strain energy. Shell displacement fields (longitudinal, circumferential and radial) are expanded by means of a double mixed series, i.e. harmonic functions for the circumferential variable and Chebyshev polynomials for the longitudinal variable. All boundary conditions are satisfied. The system is discretized by using natural modes of the shell and Lagrange equations by an energy approach, retaining damping through Rayleigh's dissipation function. Different expansions involving from 18 to 52 generalized coordinates are used to study the convergence of the solution. The nonlinear equations of motion are numerically studied by using arclength continuation method and bifurcation analysis. Numerical responses to harmonic radial excitation in the spectral neighborhood of the lowest natural frequency are compared with experimental results available in literature. The effect of geometric imperfections and excitation amplitude are numerically investigated and fully explained.     

Axially symmetric vibrations of fluid-filled poroelastic circular cylindrical shells

Employing Biot's theory of wave propagation in liquid saturated porous media, axially symmetric vibrations of fluid-filled and empty poroelastic circular cylindrical shells of infinite extent are investigated for different wall-thicknesses. Let the poroelastic cylindrical shells are homogeneous and isotropic. The frequency equation of axially symmetric vibrations each for a pervious and an impervious surface is derived. Particular cases when the fluid is absent are considered both for pervious and impervious surfaces. The frequency equation of axially symmetric vibrations propagating in a fluid-filled and an empty poroelastic bore, each for a pervious and an impervious surface is derived as a limiting case when ratio of thickness to inner radius tends to infinity as the outer radius tends to infinity. Cut-off frequencies when the wavenumber is zero are obtained for fluid-filled and empty poroelastic cylindrical shells both for pervious and impervious surfaces. When the wavenumber is zero, the frequency equation of axially symmetric shear vibrations is independent of nature of surface, i.e., pervious or impervious and also it is independent of presence of fluid in the poroelastic cylindrical shell. Non-dimensional phase velocity for propagating modes is computed as a function of ratio of thickness to wavelength in absence of dissipation. These results are presented graphically for two types of poroelastic materials and then discussed. In general, the phase velocity of an empty poroelastic cylindrical shell is higher than that of a fluid-filled poroelastic cylindrical shell.The phase velocity of a fluid-filled bore is higher than that of an empty poroelastic bore. Previous results are shown as a special case of present investigation. Results of purely elastic solid are obtained.     

A new frequency formula for closed circular cylindrical shells for a large variety of boundary conditions

A new formula for the natural frequencies of circular cylindrical shells is presented for modes in which transverse deflections dominate. It is valid for all boundary conditions for which the roots of the analogous beam problem can be obtained. Good agreement with experimental data for a variety of boundary conditions is shown.     

Theory and experiments for large-amplitude vibrations of empty and fluid-filled circular cylindrical shells with imperfections

The large-amplitude response of perfect and imperfect, simply supported circular cylindrical shells to harmonic excitation in the spectral neighbourhood of some of the lowest natural frequencies is investigated. Donnell's non-linear shallow-shell theory is used and the solution is obtained by the Galerkin method. Several expansions involving 16 or more natural modes of the shell are used. The boundary conditions on the radial displacement and the continuity of circumferential displacement are exactly satisfied. The effect of internal quiescent, incompressible and inviscid fluid is investigated. The non-linear equations of motion are studied by using a code based on the arclength continuation method. A series of accurate experiments on forced vibrations of an empty and water-filled stainless-steel shell have been performed. Several modes have been intensively investigated for different vibration amplitudes. A closed loop control of the force excitation has been used. The actual geometry of the test shell has been measured and the geometric imperfections have been introduced in the theoretical model. Several interesting non-linear phenomena have been experimentally observed and numerically reproduced, such as softening-type non-linearity, different types of travelling wave response in the proximity of resonances, interaction among modes with different numbers of circumferential waves and amplitude-modulated response. For all the modes investigated, the theoretical and experimental results are in strong agreement.     

Vibration characteristics of thin rotating cylindrical shells with various boundary conditions

An analysis is presented for the vibration characteristics of thin rotating cylindrical shells with various boundary conditions by use of Fourier series expansion method. Based on Sanders’ shell equations, the governing equations of motion which take into account the effects of centrifugal and Coriolis forces as well as the initial hoop tension due to rotating are derived. The displacement field is expressed as a product of Fourier series expressions which represents the axial modal displacements and trigonometric functions which represents the circumferential modal displacements. Stokes’ transformation is employed to derive the derivatives of the Fourier series expressions. Then, through the process of formula derivation, an explicit expression of the exact frequency equation can be obtained for a thin rotating cylinder with classical boundary conditions of any type. Once the frequency equation has been determined, the frequencies are calculated numerically. To validate the present analysis, comparisons between the results of the present method and previous studies are performed and very good agreement is achieved. Finally, the method is applied to investigate the vibration characteristics of thin rotating cylindrical shells under various boundaries, and the results are presented.     

Purely axial vibration of thin cylindrical shells with shear-diaphragm boundary conditions

This work presents the free vibration characteristics of a thin walled cylindrical shell at the zeroth axial mode number. The cylindrical shell has shear-diaphragm boundary conditions at each end. The thin shell equations by Flügge are used as these equations of motion lead to more accurate results at low frequencies. The zeroth axial mode number is found to occur at the cut-on of the second class of waves. The mode shapes at these natural frequencies result in a purely axial displacement of the middle surface of the shell. High modal density for the first class of waves occurs before the cutting-on of the second class of waves. Beyond this frequency, the dynamic response is dominated by the latter modes.     

A comparison of shell theories for large-amplitude vibrations of circular cylindrical shells: Lagrangian approach

Large-amplitude (geometrically non-linear) vibrations of circular cylindrical shells subjected to radial harmonic excitation in the spectral neighbourhood of the lowest resonances are investigated. The Lagrange equations of motion are obtained by an energy approach, retaining damping through Rayleigh's dissipation function. Four different non-linear thin shell theories, namely Donnell's, Sanders-Koiter, Flügge-Lur’e-Byrne and Novozhilov's theories, which neglect rotary inertia and shear deformation, are used to calculate the elastic strain energy. The formulation is also valid for orthotropic and symmetric cross-ply laminated composite shells. The large-amplitude response of perfect and imperfect, simply supported circular cylindrical shells to harmonic excitation in the spectral neighbourhood of the lowest natural frequency is computed for all these shell theories. Numerical responses obtained by using these four non-linear shell theories are also compared to results obtained by using the Donnell's non-linear shallow-shell equation of motion. A validation of calculations by comparison with experimental results is also performed. Both empty and fluid-filled shells are investigated by using a potential fluid model. The effects of radial pressure and axial load are also studied. Boundary conditions for simply supported shells are exactly satisfied. Different expansions involving from 14 to 48 generalized co-ordinates, associated with natural modes of simply supported shells, are used. The non-linear equations of motion are studied by using a code based on an arclength continuation method allowing bifurcation analysis.     

Vibrations of circular cylindrical shells with cutouts

An experimental and analytical study was carried out to examine the effect of circular cutouts on the resonant frequencies of thin cylindrical shells. The experimental results were obtained from tests performed on clamped-free aluminum cylinders and clamped ring-stiffened tri-acetyl cellulose shells with a lap-joint seam. The analytical solution was a simplified Rayleigh-Ritz type approximation. For the beam type mode, the circular cutouts had a significant influence on the frequency. For the mode with higher numbers of circumferential waves, however, the cutouts had a relatively small effect on the frequency spectra.     

Identification technique for nonlinear boundary conditions of a circular plate

As a basic study for developing an identification technique for boundary conditions of machines and structures, a new technique for a circular plate is proposed. This technique has features that do not require data measured on the boundary and is applicable to nonlinear boundary conditions. In the proposed technique, the boundary is modelled by springs and dampers as well as effective mass and moment of inertia. Then their characteristics are determined by using the analytical solution together with the experimental data. Since the technique is based on the analytical solution, it is applicable to any structure, provided that its analytical solution can be derived. Numerical simulation is conducted to show that the procedure determines the boundary conditions accurately.     

Free vibrations of elastic circular toroidal shells

In this paper, the free vibrations of elastic in vacuo circular toroidal shells under different boundary conditions are studied using the linear Sanders thin shell theory. Beam functions are used to describe the motion along the meridional direction whilst trigonometric functions are used to represent the deformation of the cross section. It is shown that both the natural frequencies and the mode shapes can be accurately predicted as long as the employed beam functions satisfy the boundary conditions at the ends of the shells. The dependence of the free vibration characteristics of an elastic toroidal shell upon boundary conditions and toroidal to cross-sectional radius ratio is also illustrated and explained in this paper.     

Generalized asymptotic expansions for coupled wavenumbers in fluid-filled cylindrical shells

Analytical expressions are found for the coupled wavenumbers in an infinite fluid-filled cylindrical shell using the asymptotic methods. These expressions are valid for any general circumferential order (n). The shallow shell theory (which is more accurate at higher frequencies) is used to model the cylinder. Initially, the in vacuo shell is dealt with and asymptotic expressions are derived for the shell wavenumbers in the high- and the low-frequency regimes. Next, the fluid-filled shell is considered. Defining a relevant fluid-loading parameter μ, we find solutions for the limiting cases of small and large μ. Wherever relevant, a frequency scaling parameter along with some ingenuity is used to arrive at an elegant asymptotic expression. In all cases, Poisson's ratio ν is used as an expansion variable. The asymptotic results are compared with numerical solutions of the dispersion equation and the dispersion relation obtained by using the more general Donnell-Mushtari shell theory (in vacuo and fluid-filled). A good match is obtained. Hence, the contribution of this work lies in the extension of the existing literature to include arbitrary circumferential orders (n).     

Beam vibrations with time-dependent boundary conditions

A procedure is outlined for the solution of the vibration problem of a Bernoulli-Euler beam with time-dependent boundary conditions. The solution is greatly simplified if the dependent variable in the original partial differential equation can be changed to produce homogeneous boundary conditions and at the same time maintain a homogeneous differential equation. A method for making such a change is given and illustrated by solving a cantilever beam problem with a time-dependent tip displacement.     

Polynomial chaos expansions for optimal control of nonlinear random oscillators

The polynomial chaos decomposition of stochastic variables and processes is implemented in conjunction with optimal polynomial control of nonlinear dynamical systems. The procedure is demonstrated on a base-excited system whereby ground motion is modeled as a stochastic process with a specified correlation function and is approximated by its Karhunen-Loeve expansion. An adaptive scheme for stochastic approximation with polynomial chaos bases is proposed which is based on a displacement-velocity norm and is applied to the identification of phase orbits of nonlinear oscillators. This approximation is then integrated in the design of an optimal polynomial controller, allowing for the efficient estimation of statistics and probability density functions of quantities of interest. Numerical investigations are carried out employing the polynomial chaos expansions and the Lyapunov asymptotic stability condition based control policy. The results reveal that the performance, as gaged by probabilistic quantities of interest, of the controlled oscillators is greatly improved. A comparative study is also presented against the classical stochastic optimal control, whereby statistical linearization based LQG is employed to design the optimal controller. It is remarked that the proposed polynomial chaos expansion is a preferred approach to the optimal control of nonlinear random oscillators.     

Rotationally symmetric vibrations of orthotropic layered cylindrical shells

The derivation of the general equations of motion for the analysis of laminated cylindrical shells consisting of layers of orthotropic laminae, and the equations of motion for rotationally symmetric deformation made previously by the authors are used in this study. The three coupled differential equations governing the rotationally symmetric motion of each layer of a cylindrical shell with rotary inertia neglected are replaced by another set of three differential equations where the solutions can be obtained systematically. General solutions for laminated cylindrical shells of finite length are presented. Coupled frequencies and several mode shapes for a fixed-end cylindrical shell with one and two orthotropic layers of various geometric dimensions are calculated for illustrative purposes. The results based on the present analysis for a single layered shell are compared to the results obtained according to the classical analysis.     

Dynamic analysis of ring-stiffened circular cylindrical shells

A numerical method is developed for the dynamic analysis of ring-stiffened circular cylindrical thin elastic shells. Only circular symmetric vibrations of the shell segments and radial and torsional vibrations of the rings are considered. The geometric and material properties of the shell segments and the rings may vary from segment to segment. Free vibrations or forced vibrations due to harmonic pressure loading are treated with the aid of dynamic stiffness influence coefficients for shell segments and rings. Forced vibrations due to transient pressure loading are treated with the aid of dynamic stiffness influence coefficients for shell segments and rings defined in the Laplace transform domain. The time domain response is then obtained by a numerical inversion of the transformed solution. The effect of external viscous or internal viscoelastic damping is also investigated by the proposed method. In all the cases, the dynamic problem is reduced to a static-like form and the “exact” solution of the problem is numerically obtained.     

Natural frequencies of clamped-free circular cylindrical shells

Some experimental studies of the circumferential mode vibration characteristics of clamped-free circular cylindrical shells are reported and the results compared with some available theoretical predictions. Good agreement has been obtained for the natural frequencies for configurations typical of unstiffened steel stacks.