A Fully Elastic Model for Studying Submerged Circular Cylindrical Shells Subjected to a Weak Shock Wave

The transient dynamics of evacuated and fluid-filled circular elastic shells, submerged in an infinite fluid medium and subjected to an external weak shock wave, is considered in this paper. This circular shell/acoustic medium interaction problem has already been tackled with simplified thin shell models, based on the Love-Kirchhoff hypotheses for the structural dynamics. In this case, the resulting radiated pressure field displays some discrepancies related to the A₀/S₀ waves when compared to the experimental data available in the literature for the evacuated case. These drawbacks are overcome here by the use of an isotropic elastic model for the structural dynamics and an inviscid acoustic flow for the fluid dynamics, in a two-dimensional framework. It is assumed that the shell displacements are small compared to both its radius and thickness. The approach is based on the methods of Laplace transform in time, Fourier series expansions and separation of variables in space. For the fluid-filled case, the transient thick shell-weak shock wave interaction problem is explored and the radiated acoustic field described.