The flutter of truncated conical shell subjected to internal supersonic air flow

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a new approach to determine the aeroelastic instability of truncated conical shells. In the proposed approach the governing equation of flutter for a truncated conical shell is established using Love's thin shell theory and the quasi-steady first-order piston theory. Design/methodology/approach - The derivatives in both the governing equations and the boundary conditions are discretized with the differential quadrature method, and the critical flutter chamber pressure is obtained by eigenvalue analysis. Findings - The influence of the shell geometry parameters, such as semi-cone angle, radius-thickness ratio and length-radius ratio, on the critical flutter chamber pressure is studied. Results are also presented to indicate the stabilizing effects of aerodynamic damping and the destabilizing effects of the curvature correction term of piston theory on flutter of truncated conical shell. Originality/value - The present approach is an efficient method for the free vibration and flutter analysis of truncated conical shells due to its high order of accuracy and less requirement of virtual storage and computational effort.