Since the 1st edition of this book was published in 1975, major advances have been made in the subject "Dynamics Of Structures." While it would be impossible to give a comprehensive treatment of all such changes in this second edition, those considered to be of most practical significance are included.
The general organization of text material remains unchanged from the 1st edition. It progresses logically from a treatment of single degree of freedom systems to multi degree of freedom discrete parameter systems and then on to in finite degree of freedom continuous systems. The concept of force equilibrium, which forms the basis of static analysis of structures, is retained so that the experienced engineer can easily make the transition to performing a dynamic analysis. It is essential therefore that the student of structural dynamics have a solid background in the theories of statics of structures, including matrix methods, and it is assumed that the readers of this text have such preparation.
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The theoretical treatment in Parts I, II, and III is deterministic in nature because it makes use of dynamic loadings which are fully prescribed even though they may be highly irregular and transient with respect to time. The treatment of random vibrations in Part IV is however stochastic (random) in form since the loadings considered can be characterized only in a statistical manner. An understanding of basic probability theory is therefore an essential prerequisite to the study of this subject. Before proceeding with this study, it is recommended that the student take a full course on probability theory; however, if this has not been done, the brief treatment of probability concepts given in Chapter 20 can serve as minimum preparation.
The solution of a typical structural dynamics problem is considerably more complicated than its static counterpart due to the addition of inertia and damping to the elastic resistance forces and due to the time dependency of all force quantities. For most practical situations, the solution usually is possible only through the use of a highspeed digital computer, which has become the standard tool of the structural dynamics. However, most of the problems in the text, which are intended to teach the fundamentals of dynamics, are quite simple in form allowing their solutions to be obtained using a hand calculator. Nevertheless, the student of dynamics of structures should have previously studied computer coding techniques and the associated analytical procedures. Such background will permit an early transition from solving dynamics problems by hand calculator to solving them on a PC computer using programs specially developed for this purpose. The program CAL91, developed by Professor E. L. Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley, is such a program which has been used very effectively in teaching even the 1st course in Dynamics Of Structures. Instructors using this book are encouraged to implement such PC computer solutions into their courses so that more realistic problems can be considered.