On the Use of Truncated Basis for Dynamic Analysis

All complete bases are equivalent. The one provided by the modes leads to uncoupled equations but to get
the modes one must solve an eigenvalue problem and whether the total solution cost is reduced depends
on the type of problem. The general guideline is that if the number of time steps where the solution is
needed is small the direct solution is likely less expensive than the modal superposition one.

One may be interested in solving only a truncated modal basis for two reasons:

1) To reduce the computational cost or

2) Because the high frequency modes of the finite element discretization are deemed unreliable.

We assume from this point onward that the motivating reason here is (1).

The standard solution is to solve for the modes and use a number which one believes suffices to attain the
desirable accuracy. In the case of seismic codes the user is given guidance, typically expressed as the
need to include a sufficient # of modes to account for 90% or more of the total mass- this can also be
stated as include enough modes such that if the dynamic load is applied statically the base shear will be
at least 90% of the total.

A question that could be posed at this point is whether it is more efficient to use an algorithm that solves
for a subset of modes or one that gives all the modes and then keeps the modes of interest. A close
examination shows that the cost of solving the modal equations once the system is uncoupled is minimal
so the real issue is being able to solve the eigenproblem effectively. At the time of writing the systems for
which the size of the problem starts to become a consideration (for personal computing) is on the order of
100s of DOF.

Another possibility is to eliminate the high cost of solving the eigenvalue problem (even for the reduced #
of modes) by selecting the basis a-priori. There is no silver bullet on how to select a basis that will be
efficient for a given case.

In the particular case of structures subjected to a dynamic load that has a constant spatial distribution the
use of an orthonormal basis that starts with the static response to the load is common. In the idea of Ritz
vectors introduced in the EESD paper by Wilson in 1982 the subsequent vectors are taken as vectors that
expand the basis in the direction trial j K 1Mx j 1 where the xj-1 vector is the last one computed.

The standard Ritz approach fails if the initial vector coincides with any of the structure modes but it is
otherwise easy to implement and efficient. Once the Ritz basis is computed the reduced order problem
can be diagonalized (if desired) producing a final basis that renders diagonal the mass and stiffness but
not the damping (assuming that the original matrix was classical). Concern about the damping is,
however, academic as the initial distribution is prescribed not computed.

Consider a system with n modes and a solution based on a p-truncated basis the question that is often
posed is: which is better, the modal basis or the Ritz? this is an ill-posed question since it depends on
the history of the loading and the frequency of the of the lower modes. In seismic analysis people tend to
say that the Ritz vectors give a better truncated solution for the vertical ground motion. This is expected
since the modes that dominate the response to vertical excitation are higher modes and the Ritz basis for
vertical motion has the static response as its first component.
To help clarify the essential ideas we consider a 40-DOF subjected to a base acceleration and perform the
following computations:

1) Get the exact response - EX

2) Perform a SVD of the response and take the basis as the first 3 left side singular vectors for
response using a truncated basis of dimension 3 these should provide the best approximation we
designate the response PC

3) Response approximated using the first 3 modes designate it as MA

4) Response approximated with the first 3 Ritz vectors designate it as RA

The results for the response can be investigated by running the program R2. Here we give a few results
for the case where the truncated dimension is three and the response of interest is displacement. We
characterize the error as the norm of the difference between the exact response and the response
predicted. The response predicted using the left side singular vector basis is presented for interest only (as
a bound) since this basis cannot be computed unless the response is available. We take the response at the
5th level and, to exaggerate the relevance of the higher modes (and thus of the advantage offered by the
Ritz vectors) we slow down the earthquake time history by a factor of 4 (otherwise the responses are
essentially exact in all cases).

As a measure of error we take the norm of the difference between the exact and the predicted response in
the level selected (the 5th)

Principal Component 2.73

Modal Basis - 11.39
Ritz Basis - 4.15