Vibration characteristics of a spherical-cylindrical-spherical shell by a domain decomposition method

A domain decomposition method is used to analyze the free and forced vibration characteristics of a spherical-cylindrical-spherical shell, based on Reissner-Naghdi's thin shell theory. The joined shell is divided into some cylindrical and spherical shell segments along the meridional (longitudinal) direction. Double mixed series, i.e., Fourier series and Chebyshev polynomials, are employed as the admissible displacement functions to obtain the discretized equation of motion for the joined shell. Numerical comparisons with the results derived by FEM and those available in the previous literature are made to validate the present method. Moreover, the effects of length-to-radius and radius-to-thickness ratios on the natural frequencies are also investigated. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.