A priori error estimator of the generalized‐α method for structural dynamics

Abstract

AbstractAn a priori error estimator for the generalized‐α time‐integration method is developed to solve structural dynamic problems efficiently. Since the proposed error estimator is computed with only information in the previous and current time‐steps, the time‐step size can be adaptively selected without a feedback process, which is required in most conventional a posteriori error estimators. This paper shows that the automatic time‐stepping algorithm using the a priori estimator performs more efficient time integration, when compared to algorithms using an a posteriori estimator. In particular, the proposed error estimator can be usefully applied to large‐scale structural dynamic problems, because it is helpful to save computation time. To verify efficiency of the algorithm, several examples are numerically investigated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.