Exact solutions for vibration of open cylindrical shells with intermediate ring supports

This paper presents an analytical procedure for determining the free vibration frequencies of open circular cylindrical shells with intermediate ring supports based on the Flügge thin shell theory. The shell can be divided into several segments at the locations of the ring supports. The state-space technique is adopted to derive the homogenous differential equations for a shell segment and the domain decomposition method is employed to impose the equilibrium and compatibility requirements along the interface of the shell segments. Shells with any number of intermediate ring supports and various combinations of edge support conditions are studied. Furthermore, the effects of the intermediate ring support and their locations, boundary conditions, number of ring supports as well as the variation of the included angle on the natural frequencies are examined.