The beam-mode stability of periodic functionally-graded-material shells conveying fluid

•A periodic shell conveying fluid is designed to enhance the stability for the shell system.•The functionally graded material is used to eliminate stress concentration.•The effects of a spring support on the dynamics of the system are studied.•The distributed spring on the dynamical stability of the shell system is investigated.

The characteristics of beam-mode stability of fluid-conveying shell systems are investigated in this paper for shells with clamped-free (cantilevered) boundary conditions. An FEM algorithm is developed to conduct the investigation. A periodic shell structure of functionally graded material (FGM), termed as PFGM shell here, is designed so as to enhance the stability for the shell system, and to eliminate the stress concentration problems that exist in periodic structures. Results show that by the introduction of periodic design the critical velocities can be raised over several desired ranges of the dimensionless fluid density β, and the stress concentration is effectively reduced in the PFGM shell. Finally, the effects of the geometric shape, material parameters and spring supports on the dynamical stability are probed.