On the self-stressing modes in free vibration analysis

Published in Journal of Sound and Vibration Vol. 83 (2), pp. 143-155, 1982
doi: 10.1016/S0022-460X(82)80082-5

Abstract

The type of convergence to the eigenspectrum of a structure calculated from a finite element analysis is examined in light of the variational properties of the Rayleigh quotient and of Courant's maximum-minimum principle. The influence of the self-stressing modes on the solution is firt demonstrated theoretically and then shown practically on the results obtained via a family of equilibrium elements in which the number of self-stressing modes relative to the number of vibration modes may be varied as a parameter.