Modeling and analysis of free vibrations in thermoelastic hollow spheres

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a model to analyze free vibrations in a transradially isotropic, thermoelastic hollow sphere subjected to stress free, thermally insulated or stress free, isothermal and rigidly fixed, thermally insulated or rigidly fixed, isothermal boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach – The potential functions along with spherical wave solution have been used to reduce the system of governing partial differential equations to a coupled system of ordinary differential equations in radial coordinates after employing non-dimensional quantities. Matrix Frobenius method of extended power series has been employed to obtain accurate solution of coupled differential equations in terms of radial coordinates. The mathematical model of the considered problem has been solved analytically to obtain the characteristics equations after imposing the appropriate boundary conditions at the outer and inner surfaces of the hollow sphere. The characteristic equations which govern various types of vibration modes expected to exist have been derived in the compact form. The special cases of spheroidal and toroidal modes of vibrations have been deduced from the characteristic equations and discussed. Findings – The toroidal mode has been found to be independent of temperature change. The magnitude of lowest frequency and damping factor are significantly affected in the presence of thermal field and increase with an increase in the spherical harmonics in addition to geometry of the structure. Originality/value – The matrix Frobenius method has been used to develop analytical solutions and functional iteration technique to carry out numerical simulations of such structures for the first time. The simulated results are presented graphically and compared with the available literature.