Free Vibration Analysis of Closed Moderately Thick Cross-Ply Composite Laminated Cylindrical Shell with Arbitrary Boundary Conditions

A semi-analytic method is adopted to analyze the free vibration characteristics of the moderately thick composite laminated cylindrical shell with arbitrary classical and elastic boundary conditions. By Hamilton’s principle and first-order shear deformation theory, the governing equation of the composite shell can be established. The displacement variables are transformed into the wave function forms to ensure the correctness of the governing equation. Based on the kinetic relationship between the displacement variables and force resultants, the final equation associated with arbitrary boundary conditions is established. The dichotomy method is conducted to calculate the natural frequencies of the composite shell. For verifying the correctness of the present method, the results by the present method are compared with those in the pieces of literatures with various boundary conditions. Furthermore, some numerical examples are calculated to investigate the effect of several parameters on the composite shell, such as length to radius ratios, thickness to radius ratios and elastic restrained constants.