On orthogonal polynomial approximation with the dimensional expanding technique for precise time integration in transient analysis

We use four orthogonal polynomial series, Legendre, Chebyshev, Hermite and Laguerre series, to approximate the non-homogeneous term for the precise time integration and incorporate them with the dimensional expanding technique. They are applied to various structures subjected to transient dynamic loading together with Fourier and Taylor approximation proposed in previous works. Numerical examples show that all six methods are efficient and have reasonable precision. In particular, Legendre approximation has much higher precision and better convergence; Chebyshev approximation is also good, but only slightly inferior to Legendre approximation. The other four approximation methods usually produce results with errors hundreds of thousands of times larger. Hermite and Laguerre approximation may be useful for some special non-homogeneous terms, but do not work sufficiently well in our numerical examples. Other contributions of this paper include, a Dynamic Programming scheme for computing series coefficients, a general formula to find the assistant matrix for any polynomial series. (C) 2006 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.