Finite-difference time-domain analysis of the vibration characteristics of building structures using a dimension-reduced model

Abstract

In order to accurately predict the vibration characteristics of buildings, wave-based numerical methods are effective from the viewpoint of the modeling accuracy of the physical mechanism and the detailed geometries of the simulated field. However, because of the performance of current PCs, the prediction of real-scale problems remains difficult. In order to address such problems, we herein propose a vibration simulation method for a beam-plate structure using a dimension-reduced modeling method. The target structure is modeled as a composite structure consisting of two-dimensional plate elements and one-dimensional beam elements, which are coupled based on the implicit finite-difference approximation scheme. By applying such a low-dimensional element, a faster simulation that requires less memory, as compared with a three-dimensional discretization scheme, is made available. To validate the method, the vibration characteristics obtained by the proposed scheme are compared to the measured results for model-scale and full-scale structure. The comparison of the measurement and simulation results suggest that the proposed method can be used to accurately simulate a multilayered building structure.