Structural dynamics

Behavior of a structure subjected to dynamic (actions having high acceleration) loading
Structural dynamics is a type of structural analysis which covers the behavior of a structure subjected to dynamic (actions having high acceleration) loading. Dynamic loads include people, wind, waves, traffic, earthquakes, and blasts. Any structure can be subjected to dynamic loading. Dynamic analysis can be used to find dynamic displacements, time history, and modal analysis. Structural analysis is mainly concerned with finding out the behavior of a physical structure when subjected to force. This action can be in the form of load due to the weight of things such as people, furniture, wind, snow, etc. or some other kind of excitation such as an earthquake, shaking of the ground due to a blast nearby, etc. In essence all these loads are dynamic, including the self weight of the structure because at some point in time these loads were not there. The distinction is made between the dynamic and the static analysis on the basis of whether the applied action has enough acceleration in comparison to the structure's natural frequency. If a load is applied sufficiently slowly, the inertia forces (Newton's first law of motion) can be ignored and the analysis can be simplified as static analysis. A static load is one which varies very slowly. A dynamic load is one which changes with time fairly quickly in comparison to the structure's natural frequency. If it changes slowly, the structure's response may be determined with static analysis, but if it varies quickly (relative to the structure's ability to respond), the response must be determined with a dynamic analysis. Dynamic analysis for simple structures can be carried out manually, but for complex structures finite element analysis can be used to calculate the mode shapes and frequencies.

A dynamic load can have a significantly larger effect than a static load of the same magnitude due to the structure's inability to respond quickly to the loading (by deflecting). The increase in the effect of a dynamic load is given by the dynamic amplification factor (DAF) or dynamic load factor (DLF):

where u is the deflection of the structure due to the applied load. Graphs of dynamic amplification factors vs non dimensional rise time (tr/T) exist for standard loading functions (for an explanation of rise time, see time history analysis below). Hence the DAF for a given loading can be read from the graph, the static deflection can be easily calculated for simple structures and the dynamic deflection found.

A history will give the response of a structure over time during and after the application of a load. To find the history of a structure's response, you must solve the structure's equation of motion.

For real systems there is often mass participating in the forcing function (such as the mass of ground in an earthquake) and mass participating in inertia effects (the mass of the structure itself, Meq). The modal participation factor Γ is a comparison of these two masses. For a single degree of freedom system Γ = 1.