Differential quadrature time element method for structural dynamics

An accurate and efficient differential quadraturetime element method(DQTEM) is proposed for solving ordinary differential equations(ODEs),the numerical dissipationand dispersion of DQTEM is much smaller than that of thedirect integration method of single/multi steps.Two methodsof imposing initial conditions are given,which avoids thetediousness when derivative initial conditions are imposed,and the numerical comparisons indicate that the first method,in which the analog equations of initial displacements andvelocities are used to directly replace the differential quadrature(DQ) analog equations of ODEs at the first and the lastsampling points,respectively,is much more accurate thanthe second method,in which the DQ analog equations ofinitial conditions are used to directly replace the DQ analogequations of ODEs at the first two sampling points.On thecontrary to the conventional step-by-step direct integrationschemes,the solutions at all sampling points can be obtainedsimultaneously by DQTEM,and generally,one differentialquadrature time element may be enough for the whole timedomain.Extensive numerical comparisons validate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.