Analytical similitudes applied to thin cylindrical shells

Abstract

This work is focused on the definition and the analysis of both complete and incomplete similitudes for the dynamic responses of thin shells. Previous numerical and experimental investigations on both structural and structural-acoustic systems motivated this further analysis, mainly centred on the incomplete (distorted) similitudes. These similitudes and the associated scaling laws are defined by using the classical modal approach (CMA) and by invoking also the Energy Distribution Approach (EDA) in order to take into account both the cinematic and energetic items. The whole procedure is named SAMSARA: Similitude and Asymptotic Models for Structural-Acoustic Research and Applications. A brief summary of the procedure is herein given and the attention is paid to the analytical models of thin stiffened and unstiffened cylindrical shells. By using the well-known smeared model, the stiffened cylinder equations are used as general framework to analyse the possibility to define exact (replicas) or distorted similitudes (avatars). Despite the extreme simplicity of the proposed models, the results are really encouraging. The final aim is to define equivalent models to be used in laboratory measurements.