A POSTERIORI LOCAL ERROR ESTIMATION AND ADAPTIVE TIME-STEPPING FOR NEWMARK INTEGRATION IN DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

A simple a posteriori local error estimate for Newmark time integration schemes in dynamic analysis is presented, based on the concept of a so called 'post-processing' technique. In conjunction with the error estimate, an adaptive time-stepping algorithm is described, which adjusts the time step size so that the local error of each time step is within a prescribed error tolerance. Numerical examples given in the paper indicate that the error estimate is asymptotically convergent, computationally efficient and convenient, and the adaptive time-stepping scheme can predict a nearly optimal step size from time to time, thus making the numerical solution reliable in an efficient manner.