Semi-analytical and experimental studies on travelling wave vibrations of a moderately thick cylindrical shell subject to a spinning motion

Spinning cylindrical shells are the indispensable basic components of engineering structures and exhibit complicated dynamic responses, the experimental studies on travelling wave vibrations are rare. This work numerically and experimentally investigates the travelling wave vibrations of a spinning cylindrical shell, i.e. a cylindrical aluminium shell with the integrated flanges. A new third-order shear deformation theory (TSDT) is adopted for the moderately thick cylindrical shell. Chebyshev polynomials are utilized to accurately simulate the circumferential-wave-dependent mode functions and the classical boundary conditions of the shell. The natural frequencies of the travelling waves of the spinning cylindrical shell are derived via Ritz method. The bifurcation of the natural frequencies of the spinning cylindrical shell is experimentally observed and discussed. Experimental results validate the mode shapes and the natural frequencies of the travelling waves, where the movable simply-supported ends and the sliding ends are chosen to approximate the boundary condition of the integrated flanges. In addition, the numerical comparisons among the TSDT, the first-order shear deformation theory and Donnell's shell theory against the natural frequencies are presented.