Prediction of vibro-acoustic response of ring stiffened cylindrical shells by using a semi-analytical method.

• The vibro-acoustic model of uniform and stepped thickness ring stiffened cylindrical shells under arbitrary boundary conditions is established. • The introduction of Jacobi polynomial enriches the selection and diversity of displacement functions. • The arbitrary impulse excitation load and damped vibro-acoustic behaviors are considered. In this paper, a semi-analytical approach is presented to study the vibro-acoustic response of stiffened cylindrical shells. The analytical model is established by using multi-segment technique, artificial spring technology and smearing method, with the introduction of standard Fourier series and Jacobi polynomials. The Newmark integration approach is adopted to obtain the time domain vibration response, and the time domain Kirchhoff boundary integral formulation is employed to describe the exterior acoustic field. On this basis, the vibro-acoustic model of ring stiffened cylindrical shell can be established by considering the external excitation acting on the cylindrical surface. The accuracy and reliability of the current model are validated by comparing with the coupled FEM/BEM method and experiment, in which the object of the vibro-acoustic response test is a simply supported cylindrical shell. Additionally, the studies on influence of load parameters, edge restraints and structural scale parameters on the vibration and acoustic response of the ring stiffened cylindrical shell are conducted, which is helpful for the design of ring stiffened cylindrical shell to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]