An fe-be method for the hydroelastic vibration analysis of plates and shells partially in contact with fluid

In this study, a combined finite element (FE)–boundary element (BE) method is presented to investigate the dynamic characteristics of shell and plate structures in contact with fluid. The numerical procedure consists of two parts. In the first part, the dynamic characteristics of structures are obtained under in-vacuo condition by using the finite element method. Then, in the second part, fluid-structure interaction effects are computed in terms of generalized added mass coefficients by using the boundary element method. In analyses, surrounding fluid is assumed ideal, i.e. inviscid, incompressible and irrotational, in the context of linear hydroelasticity theory. In order to show the applicability of the proposed method, the dynamic characteristics of two different structures—a vertical rectangular plate in contact with fluid on one side and a horizontal cylindrical shell partially filled with fluid—are investigated and compared with the results obtained with a commercial software, ANSYS.