Investigations on the aerothermoelastic properties of composite laminated cylindrical shells with elastic boundaries in supersonic airflow based on the Rayleigh-Ritz method

This paper is devoted to investigate the aerothermoelastic flutter and thermal buckling characteristics of composite laminated cylindrical shells with elastic boundary conditions. In the structural modeling, Donnell's shell theory is employed, and the supersonic piston theory is applied to evaluate the aerodynamic pressure. The elastic boundary constraints for the cylindrical shell are simulated by a series of distributed artificial springs. The shape functions of the laminated cylindrical shell with elastic boundary conditions are composed of characteristic orthogonal polynomials which are derived by the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The equation of motion of the structural system is established using Hamilton's principle. The high accuracy of the present method is verified by comparing the natural frequencies and flutter bounds with published results. Based on the frequency domain method, the aerothermoelastic properties of the laminated cylindrical shell with elastic boundary conditions are analyzed. The influences of different types of spring stiffnesses on the flutter and thermal buckling bounds are studied in detail. In addition, the influences of several parameters including the length to radius ratio, ply angle and boundary condition on the aerothermoelastic behaviors of the laminated cylindrical shell with elastic boundary conditions are researched. (C) 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.