Optimal Stiffness/Damping for Dynamic Loading

Abstract

This chapter presents a strategy for establishing the structural stiffness distribution which produces the desired deformation profile for a specified dynamic loading. We first describe how one generates the linear dynamic response of a multi-degree-of-freedoms system using modal superposition and illustrate its application for periodic and seismic excitation. Based on analytical solutions and simulation results, one can establish the contribution of the individual modes to the total response. Our findings indicate that the fundamental mode usually dominates the response, and therefore the deflection profile can be taken as the fundamental mode shape. Once this assumption is introduced, the remaining steps are essentially the same as for the static loading case except that now one needs to include damping. The final result consists of two distributions, one for stiffness and one for damping.