A cylindrical strain-based shell element for vibration analysis of shell structures

A cylindrical shell element is developed for the calculation of natural frequencies of cylindrical panels as well as complete cylinders. The element is based on assumed strains rather than displacement and possesses the only five essential degrees of freedom. The displacement fields of the element satisfy the exact requirement of rigid-body modes. Convergence tests of the mesh discretisation are first carried out to establish the rate of convergence of the element. These have been applied to simply supported as well as clamped cylindrical panels. The tests show that good rate of convergence can be obtained when only a small number of elements are used. The element is then further applied to the analysis of complete cylinders and a comparison is made with available solutions.