Abstract: | The choice on an efficient direct integration procedure for linear structural dynamic equations of motion is discussed. It is suggested that as accuracy parameter the truncation error on the exponential terms contained in the modal contributions of the exact solution be assumed. This error does not always coincide with the local truncation error. These considerations were used to design an unconditionally stable one-step method whose accuracy is 0(h4). Numerical comparisons with some well-known integration schemes showed the efficiency of the proposed method. |