Elastic Response of Acoustic Coating on Fluid-Loaded Rib-Stiffened Cylindrical Shells

Reinforced cylindrical shells are used in numerous industries; common examples include undersea vehicles, aircraft, and industrial piping. Current models typically incorporate approximation theories to determine shell behavior, which are limited by both thickness and frequency. In addition, many applications feature coatings on the shell interior or exterior that normally have thicknesses which must also be considered. To increase the fidelity of such systems, this work develops an analytic model of an elastic cylindrical shell featuring periodically spaced ring stiffeners with a coating applied to the outer surface. There is an external fluid environment. Beginning with the equations of elasticity for a solid, spatial-domain displacement field solutions are developed incorporating unknown wave propagation coefficients. These fields are used to determine stresses at the boundaries of the shell and coating, which are then coupled with stresses from the stiffeners and fluid. The stress boundary conditions contain double-index infinite summations, which are decoupled, truncated, and recombined into a global matrix equation. The solution to this global equation results in the displacement responses of the system as well as the exterior scattered pressure field. An incident acoustic wave excitation is considered. Thin-shell reference models are used for validation, and the predicted system response to an example simulation is examined. It is shown that the reinforcing ribs and coating add significant complexity to the overall cylindrical shell model; however, the proposed approach enables the study of structural and acoustic responses of the coupled system.