Development of a criterion for efficient numerical calculation of structural vibration responses

The finite element method is one of the methods widely applied for predicting vibration in mechanical structures. In this paper, the effect of the mesh size of the finite element model on the accuracy of the numerical solutions of the structural vibration problems is investigated with particular focus on obtaining the optimal mesh size with respect to the solution accuracy and computational cost. The vibration response parameters of the natural frequency, modal density, and driving point mobility are discussed. For accurate driving point mobility calculation, the decay method is employed to experimentally determine the internal damping. A uniform plate simply supported at four corners is examined in detail, in which the response parameters are calculated by constructing finite element models with different mesh sizes. The accuracy of the finite element solutions of these parameters is evaluated by comparing with the analytical results as well as estimations based on the statistical energy analysis, or if not available, by testing the numerical convergence. As the mesh size becomes smaller than one quarter of the wavelength of the highest frequency of interest, the solution accuracy improvement is found to be negligible, while the computational cost rapidly increases. For mechanical structures, the finite element analysis with the mesh size of the order of quarter wavelength, combined with the use of the decay method for obtaining internal damping, is found to provide satisfactory predictions for vibration responses.