A study of the stabilizing process of unstable structures by dynamic relaxation method

In this paper, the stabilizing process of unstable structures is studied by dynamic relaxation method. The process of applying the internal force to unstable structures is called as stabilizing process of unstable structure. The initial behavior of unstable structures such as cables, pneumatic structures or cable domes, are unstable state because of no initial internal stiffness. The dynamic relaxation method is the energy minimization technique that searches the static equilibrium state by simple vector iteration method. Because the dynamic relaxation method does not need to assemble the tangential stiffness matrix of structure during each iteration of the stabilizing process, the computational effort and CPU run-time can be reduced. The finite difference integration technique is used to integrate the dynamic equilibrium equation for static equilibrium state. Some numerical examples are presented to confirm the efficiency and applicability of dynamic relaxation method. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.