This research deals with how to select connection positions of two substructures to be synthesized. The goal of this research is to find optimal connection positions in order to maximize the fundamental natural frequency of the synthesized structure.
The natural frequencies of a connected structure are obtained by modal-force equations. Optimal Connection positions can be selected through optimization process. In the optimization process, the natural frequencies of a connected structure are set to object function value and connection positions become design variables.
The method described above is applied to synthesis problems of beams, and plates, which is initially conducted for FE models and verified through experiments. Especially in experiments, FRF(Frequency Response Function)s are obtained by means of the Modal Testing technique to be used in modal-force equations for synthesizing. Once the substructures are synthesized, the Modal Testing technique is again applied to spot-welded structure using the result from the optimization procedure. It is found that the fundamental natural frequency of the synthesized structure with the optimized result gives higher value than those with the initially given connection positions.
