INCREMENTAL TRANSFER MATRIX METHOD FOR DYNAMIC ANALYSIS AND OPTIMUM DESIGN OF LINEAR/NONLINEAR MECHANICAL AND STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS.

Optimum designs of nonlinear static/dynamic problems involve difficulty in computations because both iteration procedures might be required for the analysis of nonlinearity and the optimization. This paper presents an idea of the incremental transfer matrix method and an optimization method based on it to solve the difficulty. The incremental transfer matrix method was developed by combining any of existing step-by-step integration procedures with the concept of the standard transfer matrix method. After introducing the incremental transfer matrix method, sensivity derivatives are derived and an optimum design method using the derivatives (gradient-based optimization method) is also presented.