Vibration analysis of long cylindrical shells using acoustical excitation

Acoustical excitation along with two other methods was used to excite a long circular cylindrical shell, with simply supported boundary conditions. By comparing different types of excitation, the acoustical method was discovered to have many advantages over other methods of excitation used by previous researchers. Five different analytical methods based on the Love and Flugge theories, were also studied. The objective of this study was to identify the accuracy of each theory, in predicting the natural frequencies and mode shapes of a long circular cylindrical shell. A study was made to compare the predictions of the five analytical methods with experimental measurements. Interesting theoretical and experimental observations were observed for the long shell. Finally, a simple method is proposed to reduce the errors found in some of the analytical methods.