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The Hard Dynamics
Original Post - 07 Jan 2024 - Michael H. Scott
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I am confident that you can use OpenSees to solve all reasonable problems from textbooks on statics, structural analysis, finite elements, structural dynamics, and (most of) strength of materials.
But what about engineering dynamics? The rigid body dynamics that’s way more difficult than deformable body dynamics. You know, kinematics and kinetics of particles and rigid bodies, not simple discrete systems of springs, masses, and sometimes dampers. From the course civil engineering students take as sophomores then quickly forget. The course with Coriolis effect and a bunch of cross products. The course that makes structural engineering graduate students’ heads explode when I bring up “instantaneous center of rotation” for axially rigid frame members.
Tomorrow I start teaching engineering dynamics. With the PFEM, the corotational transformation, and a constraint handler here and there, I bet I can get OpenSees to solve more than a few engineering dynamics problems. Heck, I already got the parametric oscillator to work out. I’ll write up posts as I come across other interesting particle and rigid body dynamics problems this quarter.