Analysis of natural vibration of truncated conical shells partially filled with fluid

In this paper, we study the vibrational behavior of shells in the form of truncated cones containing an ideal compressible fluid. The sloshing effect on the free surface of the fluid is neglected. The dynamic behavior of the elastic structure is investigated based on the classical shell theory, the constitutive relations of which represent a system of ordinary differential equations written for new unknowns. Small fluid vibrations are described in terms of acoustic approximation using the wave equation for hydrodynamic pressure written in spherical coordinates. Its transformation into the system of ordinary differential equations is carried out by applying the generalized differential quadrature method. The formulated boundary value problem is solved by Godunov's orthogonal sweep method. Natural frequencies of shell vibrations are calculated using the stepwise procedure and the Muller method. The accuracy and reliability of the obtained results are estimated by making a comparison with the known numerical and analytical solutions. The dependencies of the lowest frequency on the fluid level and cone angle of shells under different combinations of boundary conditions (simply supported, rigidly clamped, and cantilevered shells) have been studied comprehensively. For conical straight and inverted shells, a numerical analysis has been performed to estimate the possibility of finding configurations at which the lowest natural frequencies exceed the corresponding values of the equivalent cylindrical shell.