Abstract
It is fundamental to obtain the natural frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes for cylindrical shells in order to determine their response to different dynamic loading. In this paper an analytical investigation to the free vibration response of moderately-thick shear flexible isotropic cylindrical shells with all edges clamped is presented. The Sander’s kinematic relations for moderately thick cylindrical shell panels are utilized to develop the governing partial differential equations in conjunction with the boundary conditions. A recently developed generalized Navier’s approach, based on a boundary continuous double Fourier series expansion, is used as a solution methodology. A parametric study is presented with respect to various thicknesses, length and radius of curvature of the shell panel. The convergence of the solution method is established numerically for various parametric properties. The present results are compared with the results obtained from finite element method using a four-node isoparametric shell element. The results thus presented should serve as bench-mark solutions for future comparisons with numerical and approximate methods for calculation of free vibration parameters of moderately-thick isotropic cylindrical shells.