Modal analysis reduction of multi-body systems with generic damping

Modal analysis of multi-body systems is broadly used to study the behavior and controller design of dynamic systems. In both cases, model reduction that does not degrade accuracy is necessary for the efficient use of these models. Previous work by the author addressed the reduction of modal representations by eliminating entire modes or individual modal elements (inertial, compliant, resistive). In that work, the bond graph formulation was used to model the system and the modal decomposition was limited to systems with proportional damping. The objective of the current work is to develop a new methodology such that model reduction can be implemented to modal analysis of multi-body systems with non-proportional damping that were not modeled using bond graphs. This extension also makes the methodology applicable to realistic systems where the importance of modal coupling terms is quantified and potentially eliminated. The new methodology is demonstrated through an illustrative example. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.