Flexural vibration of cylindrical shells partially coupled with external and internal fluids

In this paper, the free flexural vibrations of a partially fluid-loaded simply supported circular cylindrical shell are studied; the fluid is assumed to be inviscid and to present a free-surface parallel to the shell axis. The presence of external and internal fluids are both studied and the problem for incompressible and compressible fluid are both discussed by using the added virtual mass approach. Circumferential dependence of displacement is extended in a Fourier series. The maximum potential energy of the cylinder is evaluated using a sum of reference kinetic energies of the shell vibrating in vacuum; this fact allows the proposed method to be independent from the theory of shells used. Then, the Rayleigh quotient for fluid-shell coupled vibration is formulated and minimized to obtain the Galerkin equation whose solution gives the natural frequencies and mode shapes. Numerical computations are performed to obtain the modal characteristics as functions of the level of water in contact with the shell in the range of good accuracy of the theory, that is around the half-wet shell level. Results for both a shell partially surrounded and filled with water are obtained and compared.