Accuracy of one-step integration schemes for damped/forced linear structural dynamics

SUMMARY: This paper proposes an energy-based measure for the evaluation of the local truncation error of two-level one-step integration schemes. The measure applies to multiple degree of freedom systems and does not necessarily require modal reduction to a scalar model; it naturally handles the structural damping and external forcing terms that are generally and mistakenly neglected in error analyses, and it segregates the error associated with the free and forced response components of the problem. To illustrate the approach, two examples associated with the application of the trapezoidal scheme and of a high-order scheme proposed in the literature are analyzed. The latter reveals the shortcomings of the standard approach that is based on the undamped/unforced linear oscillator and therefore highlights the need for the proposed framework. Indeed, the scheme order of accuracy is below expectation when structural damping or external forcing is considered, in the numerically dissipative setting. Developments on the basis of the time discontinuous Galerkin (TDG) method are then proposed to recover the scheme high-order accuracy. Additionally, they show the similarity that exists between schemes related to the TDG method and the ones obtained by integration by parts of the equation of motion.