Honarvar F., Safari N., Bazargan M., Enjilela E.

An analysis of the propagation of longitudinal waves in transversely isotropic cylindrical shells based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity is outlined in this paper. The mathematical model developed by the authors for the scattering of acoustic waves from solid cylinders [F. Honarvar and N. Sinclair, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100(1), 57 (1996)] is extended to the case of cylindrical elastic shells. Stress-free boundary conditions are applied at the inner and outer cylindrical boundaries of the shell and the exact form of the frequency equation is derived in terms of the wave number, the cylinder radii, and the material elastic constants. Dispersion curves are plotted for both Type I and Type II transversely isotropic materials. A perturbation study on the effects of shell thickness and relative magnitude of elastic constants is conducted. The results indicate that the dispersion curves are relatively sensitivite to perturbations of the thickness and axial stiffness of the shell.