Free vibration of joined conical-cylindrical shells

Abstract An analysis is presented for the free vibration of joined conical-cylindrical shells. The governing equations of vibration of a conical shell, including a cylindrical shell as a special case, are written as a coupled set of first order differential equations by using the transfer matrix of the shell. Once the matrix has been determined, the entire structure matrix is obtained by the product of the transfer matrices of the shells and the point matrix at the joint, and the frequency equation is derived with terms of the elements of the structure matrix under the boundary conditions. The method has been applied to a joined truncated conical-cylindrical shell and an annular plate-cylindrical shell system, and the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of vibration calculated numerically. The results are presented.