ABSTRACT
When the systems approach is applied to the assessment of the dynamic response of a structure, there are simply three elements to the calculation. These are represented in Fig. 1.1 and are the following:
1 Representation of the force input (F) 2 Representation of the structure (H) 3 Representation of the response (X) It is common these days to use a representation of these parameters that
is distributed according to frequency content, and so the mystique of the subject is built up. However, when this is put into a systems context, the rationale for all of today's methods of calculation becomes much clearer. The basic relationship involved merely says that, if you take the three representations above, and multiply F by H, the result is X, the response. Put simply this is
results from this very simple relationship. The representation could be in terms of frequency distribution, complex frequency response functions, matrix equations or even finite elements. The basic problem with understanding is that the equations used are rarely separated into this simple form so that a basic understanding can be obtained.
