Mechanical Vibrations Theory and Application to Structural Dynamics

• Analytical Dynamics of Discrete Systems
• Undamped Vibrations of n-Degree-of-Freedom Systems
• Damped Vibrations of n-Degree-of-Freedom Systems
• Continuous Systems
• Approximation of Continuous Systems by Displacement Methods
• Solution Methods for the Eigenvalue Problem
• Direct Time-Integration Methods

Preface to Mechanical Vibrations Theory and Application to Structural Dynamics

This monograph results from a complete recasting of a book on Mechanical Vibrations, initially written in French and published by Masson Éditions in 1992 under the title Théorie des vibrations, Application à la Dynamique des structures.

The first edition in English was issued shortly after, thanks to the support of DIST (French Ministry of Scientific Research and Space) and published by John Wiley & Sons in 1994.

The book was indubitably felt to fill a gap since both editions were a success in France as well as internationally so that both versions were almost immediately followed by a second edition by the same publishers: in French in 1996, and in 1997 for the English version.

Due to the short delay between editions, only minor changes – essentially corrections – took place between the first and second versions of the manuscript.

The numerous constructive comments received from readers – university colleagues, students, and practicing engineers – during the following decade convinced both of us that a deep revision of the original manuscript was definitely needed to meet their expectations.

Of course, there were still remaining errors to be corrected – and the very last one will never be discovered, error-making being a common trait of human beings – and more rigor and accuracy had to be brought here and there in the presentation and discussion of the concepts.

But the subject of mechanical vibration has also rapidly evolved, rendering the necessity of the addition of some new important topics.

Proposed exercises to help, on the one hand, teachers explain the quintessence of dynamics; on the other hand, students to assimilate the concepts through examples were also missing. We were planning to produce this third edition in French in the early 2000s, but the project could never be achieved due to our overwhelming professional duties.

The necessary time could finally be secured from 2010 (partly due to the retirement of the first author).

However, priority has now been given to the English language for writing this third, entirely new edition since our perception was that the demand for a new, enhanced version comes essentially from the international market.

We are indebted to Éditions Dunod for having agreed to release the rights accordingly. We are thus pleased to present to our former readers a new edition which we hope will meet most of their expectations and to offer our new readers a book that allows them to discover or improve their knowledge of the fascinating world of mechanical vibration and structural dynamics.

Without naming them explicitly, we express our gratitude to all those who have helped us to make this book a reality.

Indeed, we received from many colleagues, friends, and relatives much support, which could take various forms, such as a careful and critical reading of some parts, the provision of some examples and figures, appropriate advice whenever needed, personal support and, not the least, the understanding of our loved ones when stealing from them precious time to lead such a project to its very end.

Foreword to Mechanical Vibrations Theory and Application to Structural Dynamics

The first two editions of this book had seven skillfully written chapters, organized in my mind in three parts. Collectively, they aimed at giving the reader a coherent presentation of the theory of vibrations and associated computational methods, in the context of structural analysis.

The first part covered the analytical dynamics of discrete systems and both undamped and damped vibrations of multiple-degree-of-freedom systems. It also served as a good introduction to the second part, which consisted of two chapters.

The first one focused on the dynamics of continuous systems and covered the subject of wave propagation in elastic media.

It was followed by a chapter that bridged this topic with the book’s first part, introducing the novice to displacement methods for semi-discretizing continuous systems. It also culminated with a brief and yet well-executed initiation to the finite element method.

All this led to the book’s third part, which indulged in a concise and effective treatment of classical numerical methods for the solution of vibration problems in both frequency and time domains.

Covering all of these topics in a unified approach, making them interesting to both students and practitioners, including occasional references to experimental settings wherever appropriate, and delivering all this in less than 400 pages, was a daunting challenge that the authors had brilliantly met.

For this reason, the previous editions of this book have been my favorite educational publication on this subject matter. I have used them to teach this topic at the MS level, first at the University of Colorado at Boulder, then at Stanford University.

So what can one expect from the third edition of this book? In its third edition, the overall organization of this book and that of its chapters has remained mostly unchanged. However, several enhancements have been made to its technical content.

The notion of the response of a system to a given input has been refined throughout the text, and its connections to the concepts of dynamic reduction and substructuring (which remain timely) have been made easier to observe, follow, and understand.

Chapter 3 has gained a new section on experimental methods for modal analysis and some associated essentials in signal processing and system identification.

The mathematical content of Chapter 6 has been somehow refreshed, and two welcome enrichments have enhanced its scope.

The first is a new section on linear equation solvers, particularly emphasizing singular systems.

Such systems arise not only in many mechanical and aerospace engineering problems where the structure of interest is only partially restrained or even unrestrained but also as artifacts of many modern computational methods for structural analysis and structural dynamics.

The second enrichment brought to Chapter 6 is an updated section on the analysis of the sensitivity of frequencies and mode shapes to parameters of interest, and its association with model updating.

Most importantly, the third edition now comes with carefully designed problem sets (and occasionally some solutions) that will enhance both teaching and learning processes.

Overall, the third edition has added about 150 pages of technical content, making it a better textbook for students and teachers, a useful reference for practitioners, and a source of inspiration for researchers.

Download Mechanical Vibrations: Theory and Application to Structural Dynamics PDF 

Author(s): Michel Geradin, Daniel J. Rixen

Publisher: Wiley, Year: 2015

ISBN: 1118900200,9781118900208

Download Mechanical Vibrations Theory and Application to Structural Dynamics in PDF Format For Free.