Free vibration of three-layer circular cylindrical shells with functionally graded middle layer

This paper presents an analytical approach to analyze the nonlinear stability of thin closed circular cylindrical shells under axial compression with material properties varying smoothly along the thickness in the power and exponential distribution laws. Equilibrium and compatibility equations are obtained by using Donnel shell theory taking into account the geometrical nonlinearity in von Karman and initial geometrical imperfection. Equations to find the critical load and the load-deflection curve are established by Galerkin's method. Effects of buckling modes, of imperfection, of dimensional parameters and of volume fraction indexes to buckling loads and postbuckling load-deflection curves of cylindrical shells are investigated. In case of perfect cylindrical shell, the present results coincide with the ones of the paper [13] which were solved by Ritz energy method.

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An hp-version adaptive finite element algorithm for eigensolutions of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells via error homogenisation and higher-order interpolation

Engineering Computations ◽

10.1108/ec-07-2021-0430 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Yongliang Wang ◽

Jianhui Wang

Keyword(s):

Finite Element ◽

Free Vibration ◽

Cylindrical Shells ◽

Higher Order ◽

Wave Number ◽

Adaptive Finite Element ◽

Content Type ◽

Circular Cylindrical Shells ◽

Geometrical Factors ◽

Circumferential Wave

PurposeThis study presents a novel hp-version adaptive finite element method (FEM) to investigate the high-precision eigensolutions of the free vibration of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells, involving the issues of variable geometrical factors, such as the thickness, circumferential wave number, radius and length.Design/methodology/approachAn hp-version adaptive finite element (FE) algorithm is proposed for determining the eigensolutions of the free vibration of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells via error homogenisation and higher-order interpolation. This algorithm first develops the established h-version mesh refinement method for detecting the non-uniform distributed optimised meshes, where the error estimation and element subdivision approaches based on the superconvergent patch recovery displacement method are introduced to obtain high-precision solutions. The errors in the vibration mode solutions in the global space domain are homogenised and approximately the same. Subsequently, on the refined meshes, the algorithm uses higher-order shape functions for the interpolation of trial displacement functions to reduce the errors quickly, until the solution meets a pre-specified error tolerance condition. In this algorithm, the non-uniform mesh generation and higher-order interpolation of shape functions are suitable for addressing the problem of complex frequencies and modes caused by variable structural geometries.FindingsNumerical results are presented for moderately thick circular cylindrical shells with different geometrical factors (circumferential wave number, thickness-to-radius ratio, thickness-to-length ratio) to demonstrate the effectiveness, accuracy and reliability of the proposed method. The hp-version refinement uses fewer optimised meshes than h-version mesh refinement, and only one-step interpolation of the higher-order shape function yields the eigensolutions satisfying the accuracy requirement.Originality/valueThe proposed combination of methodologies provides a complete hp-version adaptive FEM for analysing the free vibration of moderately thick circular cylindrical shells. This algorithm can be extended to general eigenproblems and geometric forms of structures to solve for the frequency and mode quickly and efficiently.

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