Fluid-filled shells are near-ubiquitous in natural and engineered structures-a familiar example is that of glass harps comprising partially filled wineglasses or glass bowls, whose acoustic properties are readily noticeable. Existing theories modelling the mechanical properties of such systems under vibrational load either vastly simplify shell geometry and oscillatory modal shapes to admit analytical solutions or rely on finite-element black-box computations for general cases, the former yielding poor accuracy and the latter offering limited tractability and physical insight. In the present study, we derive a theoretical framework encompassing elastic shell deformation with structural and viscous dissipation, accommodating arbitrary axisymmetric shell geometries and fluid levels; reductions to closed-form solutions under specific assumptions are shown to be possible. The theory is extensively verified against a range of geometries, fluid levels and fluid viscosities in experiments; an extension of the model encompassing additional solid objects within the fluid-filled shell is also considered and verified. The presented theoretical advance in describing vibrational response is relevant in performance evaluation for engineered structures and quality validation in manufacturing.
Keywords: acoustics; elastic shells; fluid–structure interaction; structural damping; vibrational analysis; viscous damping.