A semi-analytical method for vibro-acoustic analysis of submerged ring-stiffened cylindrical shells coupled with arbitrary inner structures

A semi-analytical method is developed for vibration and acoustic analysis of a submerged ring-stiffened cylindrical shell coupled with arbitrary inner structures. The whole structure is firstly disassembled into the stiffened cylindrical shell and inner structures, which are respectively analyzed through analytical substructure method and numerical approach. For the analytical substructure method, the cylindrical shell is decomposed into several shell segments according to positions of stiffeners and external forces, including exciting forces and coupling forces. These shell segments are described by Flugge shell theory and the ribs are governed by the annular plate equations. The solutions for cylindrical shell segments and rings are expanded as wave functions and Bessel functions. For the inner structures with arbitrary irregular shapes, finite element method (FEM) is utilized to establish their motion equations. At each coupling node, an artificial spring is adopted to connect the shell and inner structures, so rigid and elastic coupling conditions can be easily simulated by setting different stiffenesses to these springs. For external fluid field, an axisymmetric boundary element method (BEM) is employed to calculate the acoustic pressure. Combining the displacement continuity and force balance conditions at the joints of adjacent shell segments and introducing the coupling forces derived from inner structures and the fluid loading, the vibro-acoustic equations of the coupled system are obtained. To verify the validity of the present approach, vibro-acoustic responses of the semi-analytical method are compared with the ones calculated through FEM/BEM. Furthermore, effects of the coupling stiffness between the shell and inner structures and external fluid loading on vibro-acoustic responses are also evaluated. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.