ABSTRACT
As Warburton7 pointed out in 1970, and even today, the finite element solutions for the dynamic analysis of general shells are relatively limited, though they have been improved. However, the mainstream development of finite elements has been from the viewpoint of providing accurate stress analysis results, although the actual considerations of geometry description and the generation of stiffness matrices are as much applicable to free vibration analysis. It can be stated that with the appropriate mass characterisation, the shell finite elements which yield accurate static results will, in general, also yield accurate dynamic results. Further, any discussion as to which of the available finite elements is superior is not included here as this aspect has been thoroughly dealt with in the literature on static analysis. The only statement that can be reasonably made is that all finite elements will not yield accurate results in all situations.
