Free vibration analysis of circular cylindrical shells

A general analytical method is presented for evaluating the free vibration characteristics of a circular cylindrical shell with classical boundary conditions of any type. The solution is obtained through a direct solution procedure in which Sanders' shell equations are used with the axial modal displacements represented as simple Fourier series expressions. Stokes' transformation is exploited to obtain correct series expressions for the derivatives of the Fourier series. An explicit expression of the exact frequency equation can be obtained for any kind of boundary conditions. The accuracy of the method is checked against available data. The method is used to find the modal characteristics of the thermal liner model of the U.S. Fast Test Reactor (FTP). The numerical results obtained are compared with finite element method solutions.