USE OF INTERPOLATED EIGENVECTORS TO POSITION COUPLING ELEMENTS BETWEEN SUBSTRUCTURES .1. THEORY

In order to model real world systems, an analyst must often break down the continuous properties of a system into discrete components, Every attempt is made to minimize the errors and limitations caused by thes e approximations. A method is presented here which allows the structur al analyst to better model systems in which certain coupling elements are to be relocated between substructures. The method uses various int erpolation techniques to relocate coupling elements such that their at tachment points are not required to lie on discretization points of th e linear system model. The results are a set of mass, damping, and sti ffness modification matrices which are used with prediction SDM techni ques to determine the behavior of the modified system. First, second, and third order polynomial interpolation methods are developed for one - and two-dimensional coupler location changes, A companion paper prov ides example systems and discusses the accuracy and computational inte nsity of the techniques.