A simple tool to forecast the natural frequencies of thin-walled cylinders

Abstract. This paper presents an approximate method to predict the natural frequencies of thin-walled cylinders. By taking inspiration from a previous work of one of the authors, the starting point of the proposed approach is a proper construction of reasonable eigenfunctions. However, a new simple tool based on the principle of virtual work has been developed to estimate the natural frequencies and the amplitude of vibration without complex numerical resolution. Moreover, the applicability of the model is extended to all the most common constraint conditions. The identification of the natural frequencies of a continuous cylinder is reduced to an eigenvalue problem based on a matrix whose e…