Natural vibrations and hydroelastic stability of laminated composite circular cylindrical shells

This paper studies the dynamic behavior of laminated composite circular cylindrical shells interacting with a fluid. The mathematical formulation of the dynamic problem for an elastic body is developed based on the variational principle of virtual displacements and the relations of linear elasticity theory. The behavior of an ideal compressible fluid is described by the potential theory, the equations of which together with boundary conditions are transformed to a weak form. The hydrodynamic pressure exerted by the fluid on the internal surface of the shell is calculated according to the linearized Bernoulli equation. The numerical implementation of the mathematical formulation has been done using the semi-analytical finite element method. The influence of the ply angle and lay-up configurations of laminated composites on the natural vibration frequencies and the hydroelastic stability boundary have been analyzed for shells with different geometrical dimensions and under different kinematic boundary conditions set at their edges. It has been found that the optimal value of the ply angle depends on the level of filling of the shell with a fluid. The obtained results support the view that by choosing the optimal configuration of the layered composite material it is possible to change upwards or downwards the frequency and mode shape, as well as the critical velocity for stability loss over a wide range.