Laminated Composite Stiffened Cylindrical Shell Panels with Cutouts under Free Vibration

The free vibration of laminated composite stiffened cylindrical shell panels in the presence of cutout is investigated. A finite element code is developed using eight-noded curved quadratic isoparametric element for shell with a three noded beam element for stiffener and the formulation is validated through solution of benchmark problems which were earlier solved by other researchers. Parametric study is carried out varying the size of the cutouts and their positions with respect to the shell centre for different edge constraints. The results are presented in the form of figures and tables. The results are further analyzed to suggest guidelines to select optimum size and position of the cutout with respect to shell centre considering the different practical constraints.