A Cross Weighted-Residual Time Integration Scheme for Structural Dynamics

In this article, we develop a novel stable time integration scheme for the transient analysis of structural dynamics problems. A second-order (in time) differential operator equation (e.g. obtained after finite element discretization in space) is written as a pair of first_order equations in terms of displacements and velocities. Then the solution is sought by minimizing the inner product of the residuals in the two equations (an unconventional approach) over typical time interval to obtain a symmetric set of algebraic equations involving displacements and velocities at two subsequent intervals. The new time integration scheme is termed the cross weighted-residual (CWR) time integration scheme because each of the two residuals takes the other one as a weight function in the minimization. The CWR time integration scheme is developed by using a uniform linear time approximation of the displacement and velocity fields to yield only a single step time integration scheme, which is comparable to the Newmark family of time integration scheme. A reduced integration technique is used to prevent velocity locking, which is caused by linear approximation of both the displacement and velocity fields. For the verification of the consistency and the stability, the CWR time integration scheme is tested with single-degree as well as multi-degree of freedom problems. The scheme performs extremely well compared with those of the well-known Newmark family of time integration schemes.