Narrow Results

A meshless model is proposed to carry out the free and stationary stochastic vibration analysis of the functionally graded combined rectangular and cylindrical shells (FG-CRCS) structure under the aerodynamic and thermal environment. The FG-CRCS structure contains three combined structure types including rectangular–cylindrical shell (RC-type), cylindrical–rectangular–cylindrical shell (CRC-type), and closed rectangular–semicylindrical shell (CRS-type). The effects of aerodynamic and thermal loads on the dynamic behaviors of the FG-CRCS structure with temperature-dependency of material properties are investigated by introducing the supersonic piston theory and thermo-elastic theory. Furthermore, the pseudo-excitation method (PEM) is adopted to simulate the random loads applied to the FG-CRCS structure. The dynamic equations of the FG-CRCS structure are established in the theoretical frame of the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), whose general boundary conditions and coupling relationship are regulated by the artificial springs. Then, the reasonableness of this meshless model to predict free and random vibrations in aerodynamic and thermal environments is verified by comparing it with published literature and FEM results. On this basis, the contribution of essential parameters (including the aerodynamic load, thermal load, and boundary condition) on the free and random vibration behaviors of the FG-CRCS structure is presented, which may serve as guidance for the design of the plate–shell coupled structures in aerospace.

The nonlinear aero-thermo-elastic behaviors of the curved-fiber composite panel are studied accounting for transient aerodynamic heating effects with two-way coupling method. The Von Karman assumption is utilized to depict the large deflection of the composite panel and the supersonic aerodynamic load is incorporated through first-order piston theory, respectively. The aerothermal and aeroelastic models are coupled with each other by performing the iterative procedure in the time domain. The aerodynamic heating heat flux is obtained by the Eckert reference temperature method, the transient temperature field is solved by the finite difference method, and the aeroelastic dynamic response is solved by the combination of the Newmark method and Newton–Raphson method. The accuracy and validity of the established model are justified by comparing the present solutions with the present numerical results in published literature. Then, the influences of the key parameters such as the transient temperature field, coupling step, heat transfer coefficient, shock wave, initial disturbance force and fiber configurations on aerothermoelastic responses of the composite panel respectively are discussed in detail.