Application of the spline prism method to analyse vibration of thick circular cylindrical panels

This paper presents an application of the spline prism method to analyse vibration of isotropic, thick circular cylindrical panels with two opposite straight edges simply supported. Three-dimensional spline prism models are formulated by combining B-spline functions with beam eigenfunctions. Because of the orthogonality of the beam functions, three-dimensional problems are reduced to a series of two-dimensional ones. To demonstrate the accuracy and convergence of the semi-numerical method, the results are compared with those obtained by the 3D-elasticity theory and by the first-order shear deformation shell theory. Good convergence and accuracy are obtained. The effects of the ratio of thickness to mean radius, the ratio of length to mean radius and the shallowness angle on the frequencies of the thick cylindrical shell panels with some boundary conditions are analysed.