Ancillary Computational Tools for the Analysis of Structural Systems

Abstract

Ancillary software tools are developed for the analysis and response quantification of structural systems in a systematic and automated fashion. The open application programming interface (OAPI) of the structural analysis software SAP2000 is exploited for this purpose and a procedure is presented for the analysis of linear systems in conjunction with MATLAB, featuring model updating, analysis execution and extraction of the results. This is facilitated by the development of ancillary functions that complement and extend existing capabilities of the OAPI. Standalone solvers are next presented for the dynamic response evaluation of bilinear hysteretic, rigid-plastic, and rocking oscillators with arbitrary excitation force. The dynamical systems considered, are indicative of distinct nonlinear behaviour and representative of a wide spectrum of structures of engineering interest. The features at the current development stage are finally showcased on the response-surface-based reliability analysis of a truss structure and the response quantification of stochastically driven nonlinear secondary oscillators. The ancillary tools developed allow convenient simplifications in the modelling and analysis process, error tractability, and can assist learning on the subject of structural dynamics. They may find application in parametric and stochastic analysis and form the basis for the development of additional modules. 4641 COMPDYN 2019 7 th ECCOMAS Thematic Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering M. Papadrakakis, M. Fragiadakis (eds.)

A reduced modal subspace approach for damped stochastic dynamic systems

“…This has been efficiently done by exploiting the open application programming interface (OAPI) of SAP2000 in conjunction with MATLAB [62], following the procedure delineated in Ref. [63], which automates the construction and analysis of the structural model as well as the customised retrieval of the required results. In a subsequent stage, Eqs.…”