Vibration analysis of a nearly axisymmetric shell structure using a new finite ring element

Abstract

A new conical ring element to be used in connection with the finite element method (FEM) is developed, which considers the effects of slight local deviations from an axisymmetric ring. To develop the proposed finite element, the displacements of a point in the ring element are assumed by a pair of the natural modes of a ring with local deviation: symmetric and asymmetric modes. By using the presented finite elements, a FEM program is also developed to analyze free vibrations of a nearly axisymmetric shell structure. The developed program is applied to a vibration analysis of a Korean bell as an example, which shows that the program is very efficient and saves much computation time for shell structures slightly deviating from axisymmetry compared to commercial FEM codes. (C) 1999 Academic Press.