Saddle-point principles and numerical integration methods for second-orderhyperbolic equations

This work describes a family of functionals whose stationarity - often sadd le-point condition - leads to well-known so-called "variational" formulatio ns for structural dynamics (such as the weak Hamilton/Ritz formulation and the continuous/discontinuous Galerkin formulation) and, in turn, to methods For the numerical integration of the equations of motion. It is shown that all the time integration methods based on "variational" formulations do de scend from such functionals. Moreover, starting from the described family o f functionals it is possible to construct new families of time integration methods. which might exhibit computational advantages over the correspondin g ones derived from "variational" formulations only. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.