Formulation of the dynamic stiffness of a cross-ply laminated circular cylindrical shell subjected to distributed loads

•Distributed loads for the dynamic stiffness matrix of cross-ply orthotropic plates.•Equivalent edge force loadings are computed.•Harmonic analysis for two load cases are presented.•The numerical validation is achieved thanks to comparisons with FE results. This paper describes a procedure for taking into account distributed loads in the calculation of the harmonic response of a cross-ply laminated circular cylindrical shell using the dynamic stiffness method. This work is a direct continuation of a previous work concerning isotropic materials. Equivalent loads are established on element boundaries to determine the response of the system. Therefore, the vibration analysis is solved with numerical examples in order to determine the performances of this approach. The method allows reducing both the size of the model and computing time, and ensures higher precision compared to the finite element method.