A General Purpose Analytical Technique for Nonlinear Dynamic Response of Integrated Structures

This paper is concerned with a general purpose analytical technique and an associated computer program, “NONDRIS,” for analyzing the nonlinear dynamic response of integrated structures. The “NONDRIS” program includes beam, plate, spring (or truss), and rigid-body elements in its element library. This analytical technique has been developed for dealing with the linear and nonlinear dynamic response of both a single structural component and a multiple-member structural system, with special emphasis on the crash response of vehicle structures.

An effective finite difference scheme modified for irregular mesh has been applied for developing the beam and plate elements. Geometric and material nonlinearities like strain-rate sensitivity and strain-hardening are included. A nonlinear spring element and a rigid-body element with six degrees of freedom are also included to form this general purpose analytical technique.

The validity of this analytical technique is illustrated in three example problems analyzed with the “NONDRIS” program. The three example problems include: 1) the vehicle barrier impact response at 48 km/h; 2) the oblique impact respone of a two-dimensional framed structural system; and 3) t.he in-plane crush response of an integrated beam and plate structure. In all three problems, very reasonable correlations between analysis and experiment have been observed.