Dynamic Synthesis of Nonclassically Damped Substructures

A synthesis approach is presented for calculating the complex eigen‐properties of a nonclassically damped structure from the complex eigenproperties of the constituent substructures which are also nonclassically damped. In this approach, the substructures are successively coupled, one degree of freedom at a time. At each stage of coupling, the eigenvalues are obtained as the solution of a simple characteristic equation, defined in closed form. For each calculated eigenvalue, the corresponding eigenvector is then obtained from the closed‐form expressions without solving any simultaneous equations. The approach provides exact eigenproperties. These properties can be used in the calculations of dynamic response of a structure subjected to deterministic or stochastic loads. The numerical results illustrating the application of the proposed approach are presented.