Compliant Interface in Component Mode Synthesis

Substructuring, or component mode synthesis, requires compo-nents to share interface regions. When components modeled with rather different, often incompatible levels of refinement need to be connected, correctly defining the interfaces may be important. This work proposes the definition of the reduction of interface re-gions to the equivalent rigid-body motion which minimizes the strain energy in the structural component. The proposed for-mulation provides a natural and physically sound solution for the connection of detailed structural components within coarse, multi-rigid-body and 1D flexible models.