Investigation of the accuracy of the solution of the constrained substructuring method

This paper studies the numerical accuracy of the recently presented constrained substructuring method for solving transient problems in structural dynamics, including the solution of its system of combined algebraic and differential equations. To evaluate the method's computational errors, the variations of the period elongation and the amplitude decay with time step size and with the values of the prediction parameter γ of the method are investigated. This evaluation confirms that the method is often sufficiently accurate. Techniques for improving the accuracy of the solution scheme are presented and evaluated, leading to the conclusion that one of them is well worth using if additional accuracy is required.