An explicit method for the free vibrations of non-circular cylindrical panels

A method is presented for the determination of the dynamic characteristics of non circular cylindrical panels, based on Flugge or Donnell type theories. The panels are simply supported along the curved edges, while at the straight edges they are supported by any type of admissible boundary conditions. The components of displacements are expanded in Fourier series in the axial direction and power series in the circumferential direction. The solution is determined by employing a recursive scheme in conjunction with the method of successive approximations. This approach leads to a characteristic equation in which the non-dimensional frequency appears in explicit form. The method is applied to catenary cylindrical panels. Numerical results are presented which describe the variation of the non-dimensional frequencies with respect to the geometric parameters. A comparison with circular panels is presented for different types of boundary conditions. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited