Modal localization in vibrating circular cylindrical shells

The goal of the present paper is the analysis of the effect of geometric imperfections in circular cylindrical shells. Perfect circular shells are characterized by the presence of double shell-like modes, i.e., modes having the same frequency with modal shape shifted of a quarter of wave-length in the circumferential direction. In presence of geometric imperfections, the double natu-ral frequencies split into a pair of distinct frequencies, the splitting is proportional to the level of imperfection. In some cases, the imperfections cause an interesting phenomenon on the modal shapes, which present a strong localization in the circumferential direction. This study is carried out by means of a semi-analytical approach compared with standard finite element analyses.