Aero-thermo-elastic stability analysis of sandwich viscoelastic cylindrical shells in supersonic airflow

The aero-thermo-elastic stability of layered cylindrical shells with viscoelstic cores is investigated. The Donnell’s shell theory for the outer layers and the first order shear deformation theory for the viscoelastic layer are employed in conjunction with the von Karman–Donnell kinematic nonlinearity to construct the model. The pre-stresses and pre-deformations arisen from the temperature rise and static aerodynamic pressure are first determined by solving the nonlinear thermo-elastic equilibrium equations using by an exact analytical method. The results are then used in the linear aeroelastic stability equations and analyzed with the Galerkin’s procedure to determine the supersonic flutter boundaries of the structure. Numerical studies are performed to illustrate the effects of viscoelastic damping, geometrical parameters and temperature rise on the flutter stability margins. Special attention is put on the effect of pre-deformation on the aeroelastic stability of the shell. It is found that the pre-deformation could significantly alter the flutter boundaries for sufficiently high temperatures.