Free Vibration Analysis of Combined Cylindrical-Conical Composite Shells using First-Order Shear Deformation Theory

In this paper, a solution procedure is presented for free vibration of combined cylindrical-conical composite shells including the shear deformation effect of the shell. The solution presented in this study is obtained directly from the governing equations for five displacement components according to Hamilton’s principle. This solution is in the form of a power series in terms of a particularly convenient coordinate system. In this study, the effects of geometry and material parameters on the natural frequencies are investigated. Also, to illustrate the validity of the present solution procedure, analytical results are verified with many studies and compared with those of the present numerical ABAQUS analysis. The outcomes showed a good agreement between the obtained results. The novelty of the present study is incorporating the transverse shear deformation in calculating the natural frequencies of the joined cylindrical-conical shells. In previous literature, this topic has not been studied in such a wide scope.