Natural vibrations and stability of shells of revolution interacting with an internal fluid flow

A finite-element algorithm is proposed to investigate the dynamic behavior of elastic shells of revolution containing a quiescent or a flowing inviscid fluid in the framework of linear theory. The fluid behavior is described using the perturbed velocity potential. The shell behavior is treated in the framework of the classical shell theory and variational principle of virtual displacements incorporating a linearized Bernoulli equation for calculation of hydrodynamic pressure acting on the shell. The problem reduces to evaluation and analysis of the eigenvalues in the connected system of equations obtained by coupling the equations for velocity perturbations with the equations for shell displacements. For cylindrical shells, the results of numerical simulations are compared with recently published experimental, analytical and numerical data. The paper also reports the results of studying the dynamic behavior of shells under various boundary conditions for the perturbed velocity potential. The investigation made for conical shells has shown that under certain conditions an increase in the cone angle can change a divergent type of instability to a flutter type.