A novel numerical solution strategy for solving nonlinear free and forced vibration problems of cylindrical shells

Nonlinear vibration analysis of circular cylindrical shells has received considerable attention from researchers for many decades. Analytical approaches developed to solve such problem, even not involved simplifying assumptions, are still far from sufficiency, and an efficient numerical scheme capable of solving the problem is worthy of development. The present article aims at devising a novel numerical solution strategy to describe the nonlinear free and forced vibrations of cylindrical shells. For this purpose, the energy functional of the structure is derived based on the first-order shear deformation theory and the von-Kármán geometric nonlinearity. The governing equations are discretized employing the generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method and periodic differential operators along axial and circumferential directions, respectively. Then, based on Hamilton's principle and by the use of variational differential quadrature (VDQ) method, the discretized nonlinear governing equations are obtained. Finally, a time periodic discretization is performed and the frequency response of the cylindrical shell with different boundary conditions is determined by applying the pseudo-arc length continuation method. After revealing the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed numerical approach, comprehensive results are presented to study the influences of the model parameters such as thickness-to-radius, length-to-radius ratios and boundary conditions on the nonlinear vibration behavior of the cylindrical shells. The results indicate that variation of fundamental vibrational mode shape significantly affects frequency response curves of cylindrical shells.