Vibration and damping analyses of sandwich cylindrical and conical shells using meshfree method

The vibration and damping characteristics of sandwich shells including cylindrical and conical shells with viscoelastic core layer are investigated by using a meshfree method. The energy principle and Donnel shell hypothesis are applied to establish the theoretical formulations of sandwich shells. The displacement components of the viscoelastic core are expressed as those of base and constraining layers by using continuity condition. The displacement variables of sandwich shells expanded by the meshfree shape function and axial and circumferential directions Fourier series. The validation including accuracy and reliability of the presented method is verified by comparing the presented results with the corresponding results of the existing literatures. Furthermore, the vibration and damping behaviors of sandwich shells are analyzed by investigating the effects of geometric dimensions, material properties and boundary conditions on the natural frequencies and modal loss factors of sandwich shells, which contributes to the preliminary design of sandwich shells with viscoelastic core layer.