Component-mode synthesis method variants in the dynamics of coupled structures

The component-mode synthesis method is usually adopted in order to reduce the number of degrees-of-freedom of structures composed of two or more substructures without loosing the main physical characteristics of the whole structure. Many approaches of this method have been proposed in the literature. These approaches differ from each other for the boundary conditions which are imposed at the interface of the two substructures. In this paper four variants of interface boundary conditions are examined. For each set of conditions a suitable coordinate transformation, compatible with the conditions at the boundary degrees-of-freedom between the two substructures, is presented. Moreover, in the numerical applications a comparison between the four component-mode synthesis variants here proposed with respect to the same variants proposed in the literature is presented. The better accuracy of the proposed approach is shown.