Vibration analysis of composite pipes using the finite element method with B-spline wavelets

A finite element formulation using the B-spline wavelets on the interval is developed for modeling the free vibrations of composite pipes. The composite FRP pipe element is treated as a beam element. The finite pipe element is constructed in the wavelet space and then transformed to the physical space. Detailed expressions of the mass and stiffness matrices are derived for the composite pipe using the B-spline scaling and wavelet functions. Both Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theories are considered. The generalized eigenvalue problem is formulated and solved to obtain the modal characteristics of the composite pipe. The developed wavelet-based finite element discretization scheme utilizes significantly less elements compared to the conventional finite element method for modeling composite pipes. Numerical solutions are obtained to demonstrate the accuracy of the developed element, which is verified by comparisons with some available results in the literature.