A priori error estimator of the generalized-α method for structural dynamics

An a priori error estimator for the generalized-alpha time-integration method is developed to solve structural dynamic problems efficiently. Since the proposed error estimator is computed with only information in the previous and current time-steps, the time-step size can be adaptively selected without a feedback process, which is required in most conventional a posteriori error estimators. This paper shows that the automatic time-stepping algorithm using the a priori estimator performs more efficient time integration, when compared to algorithms using an a posteriori estimator. In particular, the proposed error estimator can be usefully applied to large-scale structural dynamic problems, because it is helpful to save computation time. To verify efficiency of the algorithm, several examples are numerically investigated. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.