Free vibration analysis of truncated conical fiber metal laminate (FML) shells

Abstract

In this paper, an analytical solution is developed for free vibration analysis of conical fiber metal shells. In order to find constitutive relations, the assumptions of thins hells are used and the governing equations are based on Love's theory. The Galerkin method is employed to solve the governing equations in which beam functions are used to approximate the mode shapes. Using beam functions enables us to assess the effects of different boundary conditions on the frequency response of the shells. Numerical comparisons of the present and previously published results confirm the accuracy of the current approach. Additionally, the influences of geometrical parameters and embedding aluminum plies in different layers of the structure on natural frequency of the conical shells with various boundary conditions are investigated. It can be observed that the more the aluminum plies are used, the greater natural frequency of the structure will be reached. Except the clamped-free boundary conditions, the results also indicate that if the aluminum plies are embedded in the top and bottom layers of the laminate, natural frequency reaches its maximum value. © 2013 AFM, EDP Sciences.