Validation, performance, convergence and application of free interface component mode synthesis

During the past three decades the component mode synthesis methods were extensively presented in the literature. Unfortunately, it seems that no convergence criterion was clearly defined in the literature. A free interface method is presented in this paper and six test cases are used to evaluate the number of retained substructure modes necessary to ensure convergence. The approach is validated numerically and experimentally. Also, an application of the proposed free interface method to optimization design is presented.