Numerical analysis of free vibrations of open cylindrical shells with elliptical cross section

Abstract

The natural frequencies and the corresponding vibration modes of open cylindrical shells with an elliptical cross-section and variable thickness are analyzed. Various opening angle of the shell along both the minor and major axes are allowed and various boundary conditions are considered. The numerical solutions are obtained using the finite element package FEMAP with the NASTRAN solver. A number of lowfrequency vibrations are investigated in terms of their dependence on the opening angle along major and minor axes of the shell. The vibration forms for the first ten frequencies with different boundary conditions at the same opening angles are shown.