Free vibration analysis of open circular cylindrical shells by the method of reverberation-ray matrix

This article is concerned with free vibration analysis of open circular cylindrical shells with either the two straight edges or the two curved edges simply supported and the remaining two edges supported by arbitrary classical boundary conditions. An analytical solution of the traveling wave form along the simply supported edges and the standing wave form along the remaining two edges is obtained based on the Flugge thin shell theory. With such a unidirectional traveling wave form solution, the method of reverberation-ray matrix is introduced to derive the equation of natural frequencies of the open circular cylindrical shell with various boundary conditions. Then, the golden section search algorithm is employed to obtain the natural frequencies of the open circular cylindrical shell. The calculation results are compared with those obtained by the finite element method and the method in available literature. Finally, the natural frequencies of the open circular cylindrical shell with various boundary conditions are calculated and the effects of boundary conditions on the natural frequencies are examined. The calculation results can be used as benchmark values for researchers to check their numerical methods and for engineers to design thin structures with shell components.