Response of an open curved thin shell to a random pressure field arising from a turbulent boundary layer

A method is presented to predict the root mean square displacement response of an open curved thin shell structure subjected to a turbulent boundary-layer-induced random pressure field. The basic formulation of the dynamic problem is an efficient approach combining classic thin shell theory and the finite element method, in which the finite elements are flat rectangular shell elements with five degrees of freedom per node. The displacement functions are derived from Sanders’ thin shell theory. A numerical approach is proposed to obtain the total root mean square displacements of an open curved thin structure in terms of the cross spectral density of random pressure fields. The cross spectral density of pressure fluctuations in the turbulent pressure field is described using the Corcos formulation. Exact integrations over surface and frequency lead to an expression for the total root mean square displacement response in terms of the characteristics of the structure and flow. An in-house program based on the presented method was developed. The total root mean square displacements of a curved thin blade subjected to turbulent boundary layers were calculated and illustrated as a function of free stream velocity and damping ratio. A numerical implementation for the vibration of a cylinder excited by fully developed turbulent boundary layer flow was presented. The results compared favorably with those obtained using software developed by Lakis and Païdoussis (J. Sound Vib. 25 (1972) 1–27) using cylindrical elements and a hybrid finite element method.