FIELD-CONSISTENT ELEMENT APPLIED TO FLUTTER ANALYSIS OF CIRCULAR CYLINDRICAL-SHELLS

Supersonic flutter analysis of laminated composite circular cylindrica l shells is investigated by using an axisymmetric shell finite element based on the field-consistency approach. The formulation includes tra nsverse shear deformation and in-plane and rotary inertia effects. The aerodynamic force is evaluated by considering the first order high Ma ch number approximation to linear potential flow theory, The solution for the complex eigenvalue problem is obtained by the QR algorithm. Nu merical results are presented for isotropic, orthotropic and laminated anisotropic circular cylindrical shells. A detailed parametric study is carried out to observe the effects of aspect ratio, thickness, inte rnal pressure, axial compression, number of layers and lamination sche me on the flutter boundary.