Summary A comprehensive study of the two sub‐steps composite implicit time integration scheme for the structural dynamics is presented in this paper. A framework is proposed for the convergence accuracy analysis of the generalized composite scheme. The local truncation errors of the acceleration, velocity, and displacement are evaluated in a rigorous procedure. The presented and proved accuracy condition enables the displacement, velocity, and acceleration achieving second‐order accuracy simultaneously, which avoids the drawback that the acceleration accuracy may not reach second order. The different influences of numerical frequencies and time step on the accuracy of displacement, velocity, and acceleration are clarified. The numerical dissipation and dispersion and the initial magnitude errors are investigated physically, which measure the errors from the algorithmic amplification matrix's eigenvalues and eigenvectors, respectively. The load and physically undamped/damped cases are naturally accounted. An optimal algorithm‐Bathe composite method (Bathe and Baig, 2005; Bathe, 2007; Bathe and Noh, 2012) is revealed with unconditional stability, no overshooting in displacement, velocity, and acceleration, and excellent performance compared with many other algorithms. The proposed framework also can be used for accuracy analysis and design of other multi‐sub‐steps composite schemes and single‐step methods under physical damping and/or loading. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Energy harvesting from an L-shaped structure, formed by two beams and corner and end masses, is investigated with the objective of expanding the bandwidth of the frequency range over which energy can be harvested. The structure is excited in a direction that yields the most uniform strain distribution along its main beam. The length of the auxiliary beam is varied to determine its effect on the level and breadth of the frequency range over which energy can be harvested. Results from experiments having different geometries are presented and discussed. It is determined that the frequency range over which energy can be harvested from such structures is much larger than levels harvested when using a cantilever beam. The experiments also show that L-shaped structures harvest more power when the length of the auxiliary beam is increased. On the contrary, the power density of the L-shaped structure is much smaller than that of the cantilever beam. The ability to control the bandwidth of frequency over which energy is harvested through proper adjustment of beam lengths is demonstrated.

An exact analytical model of frequency-variable piezoelectric stack transducers is proposed, and their dynamic characteristics are studied in this article. Based on the linear piezoelasticity theory, the dynamic analytical solution is first derived, and then its correctness is validated by comparing it with the results of a special example in the previous literature and the ones of the experimental study. The effects of the tuning resistance and the layer number of the active element on the dynamic characteristics are discussed. Numerical results show that tuning the resistance and the layer number of the active element can enable the multi-frequency characteristics of the piezoelectric stack transducers. A proper layer number of the active element can minimize the short-circuited resonance frequency and the open-circuited anti-resonance frequency. These findings provide guidelines to design and optimize the piezoelectric stack transducers, which have promising potential in developing the multi-frequency Langevin transducers for some underwater sound and ultrasonic applications, such as ultrasonic cleaning, ultrasonic chemistry, and sonar radiators.