Forced vibration analysis of composite cylindrical shells using spline finite strip method

• Forced vibration of composite shells was studied using spline finite strip method.
• Spline FSM is fairly accurate compared to FEM while using lower degrees of freedom.
• The natural frequencies of composite panel are extracted using Fast Fourier Transform.

In this study, forced vibration behavior of thin-walled composite circular cylindrical shells is investigated using the spline finite strip method (spline FSM). Spline FSM is one of the versions of finite element method (FEM) employing a special element called finite strip. The shells considered in this study are assumed to be thin; therefore, the classical bending theory of shells and Sanders–Koiter's strain–displacement relation are used in the theoretical formulation of developed method. Time-history response of shells concerning arbitrary type of forces, boundary conditions and damping effects are obtained using developed spline FSM. To check the validity of results a comparison has been performed with the results obtained by conventional finite element method using ANSYS software. As far as the time history response of cylindrical shells is available the natural frequencies are extracted using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) approach. The evaluated natural frequencies of composite shells are then compared with those obtained from an eigenvalue analysis. The comparison of results revealed the fact that developed spline FSM is an accurate tool that can be used in transient and harmonic analyses of composite laminated cylindrical shells.