Instability analysis of fluid-filled angle-ply laminated circular cylindrical shells subjected to harmonic axial loading

This paper presents the dynamic instability and nonlinear vibration analysis of fluid-filled laminated composite circular cylindrical shells subjected to harmonic axial loading. The shells are assumed to be simply supported and filled with still fluid. The mathematical model is prepared by using higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) which considers skew modes for accurate results in the analysis of angle-ply laminated composite cy-lindrical shells. The contained fluid is assumed to be non-viscous and incompressible. The nonlinear governing partial differential equations (PDEs) are obtained using Hamilton's principle, and these equations are discretised into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) by employing Galerkin's method. The pseudo-arclength continuation method along with the incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method is used in order to compute the nonlinear responses, which are plotted in the frequency domain. The regions of instability are determined by adopting Bolotin's method. The time history responses and phase portraits are also studied for empty and fluid-filled laminated cylindrical shells using the Newmark-beta method. A complete set of results that examine the effect of fluid filling, static load factor, dynamic load factor and lamination scheme are obtained.