Structural Analysis - Developments in Numerical Structural Analysis
Prof M Khadkodayan, J Alamatian, Prof Y Narita, Dr G J Turvey
Dynamic Relaxation
The method of Dynamic Relaxation (DR) is a powerful iterative numerical technique for the linear and nonlinear analysis of one, two and three-dimensional structures. It has been applied extensively to cable networks and plate structures using both finite-difference and finite element discretisations. No significantly new developments of the DR method have been reported for more than a decade. Recently, the technique has been improved significantly by developing a method to calculate the optimal fictitious time step for each iteration of the procedure. It has been shown that optimal time steps reduce the total number of iterations for convergence by between 40% and 95%, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency of the DR method.
Further information
See publication [20].
Layer-wise Optimisation
A new physically based analysis, known as LO (Layer-wise Optimisation), has been developed for determining stacking sequences which maximize the buckling loads of symmetrically laminated plates. The analysis has been verified for a large number of combinations of plate edge support conditions. Compared to a conventional trial-and-error optimization approach LO reduces the computations for solution convergence by about 99%.
Further Information
See publication [6].