Model Reduction of Large Elastic Systems

A Comparison Study on the Elastic Piston Rod

P. Koutsovasilis , M. Beitelschmidt
Professur fur Fahrzeugmodellierung und -simulation
TU Dresden, Germany
Abstract Various model reduction techniques (Guyan,
Dynamic, IRS, SEREP, CMS, Krylov) are applied to the
elastic piston rod. Their results are verified comparing eigenfrequencies and eigenvectors, respectively, using
modal correlation criteria [10]: Frequency Comparison,
modified Modal Assurance Criterion, Normalized Modal
Difference, Mass Normalized Vector Difference and Stiffness Normalized Vector Difference. A numeric approach is
proposed for the iterative Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) solution [12] of the linearized system Ax = b
in case of A ill-conditioness. User intervention is discussed
for all methods.
Keywords: Model reduction methods, modal correlation criteria,
preconditioned conjugate gradient.

with MR = TT MT, CR = TT CT, KR = TT KT being the reduced system matrices and bR = TT B the reduced load vector. The reduction effectiveness and reliability depends on the size of . Based on the choice of
T various techniques have been developed through the last
decades.
II. Reduction Techniques
A. Guyan Reduction
The oldest reduction method, which was introduced by
Guyan [4], is based on the notion of master/external and
slave/internal DOFs [13]. Suppose we have the following
undamped system:
M
x(t) + Kx(t) = f

(3)

I. Introduction
Model reduction is a key issue for the analysis of mechanical systems. For the constant demand of working with
increasingly large models while aiming to control and possibly reduce storage and simulation time needs, the application of the right technique constitutes an important decision.
A common spatial discretization method used for mechanical MBS is the Finite Element Method (FEM). The
Partial Differential Equation (PDE), which describes the
behavior of the elastic body is transformed into a second
order Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) of the form

M
x(t) + Cx(t)
+ Kx(t) = Bu(t)

(1)

where M, C, K Rnn are the system matrices (mass, damping- and stiffness matrix respectively), Bu(t)
Rn1 the load vector and x Rn1 the unknown vector with n Degrees of Freedom (DOF). In many cases
n (104 , 6 105 ), which leads to large dimension system
matrices and thus to vast storage and simulation time needs.
The general concept of model reduction is to find a lowdimensional subspace T Rnn in order to approximate
the state vector x = TxR + . By projecting (1) on this
subspace a lower dimension 2nd-order ODE is obtained
R (t) + CR x R (t) + KR xR (t) = bR
MR x
E-mail:
E-mail:

panagiotis.koutsovasilis@tu-dresden.de
michael.beitelschmidt@tu-dresden.de

(2)

The m-set of Master DOFs is defined as the set of total

DOFs that remain in (3). Analogously the s-set contains all
DOFs that will be eliminated from (3).
m s = n, n = DOFtotal , m s =

(4)

By partitioning the system matrices of (3) into block matrices that depend explicitly on the m-set {mm} or s-set
{ss} or a combination of them {ms, sm} the following reordered system is obtained


 


m
x
xm
fm


+K
=
(5)
M
s
x
xs
fs




Mmm Mms
Kmm Kms
=
 =
M
,K
Msm Mss
Ksm Kss
We solve the second equation of (5) for xs and assume
there is no force applied on the external DOFs, i.e fs =
0. By omitting the equivalent inertia terms (static), the
transformation matrix for the static reduction is obtained
according to (2), where the low-dimension subspace is in
this case represented by Tstatic :

 

xm
I
(6)
=
xm = Tstatic xm
xs
K1
ss Ksm
Generally, Guyan reduction is a good approximation for the
lower eigenfrequencies respectively eigenvectors. For high
frequency motion the effect of inertia terms is significant,
thus the method becomes inaccurate.

B. Dynamic Reduction
This technique [3] is an expansion of the static reduction. Applying a Laplace transformation on (3) we get the
equivalent system
(M 2 + K)X() = B()X() = F()

(7)

which is then re-ordered into the block partitioned master/slave DOFs as defined previously, giving in that way the
transformation matrix for the dynamic reduction:


I
(8)
Tdynamic =
B()1
ss B()sm

D. Component Mode Synthesis Method (CMS/CraigBampton)

CMS uses the same sub-structuring of internal and external DOFs as previously. For the external DOFs the CraigBampton set [7] is introduced; it consists of the lower eigenmodes of the internal/slave structure, which is calculated
having the external/master DOFs blocked, i.e:
s = sin(t) (Kss 2 Mss ) = 0
x

The displacement of the slave-coordinates is then given by

a superposition of the master DOFs and the Craig-Bampton
modes:
xs = K1
ss Ksm xm +

B()i,j := Mi,j 2 + Ki,j , i, j {s, m}

(11)

k yk = xm + y

(12)

k=1

Dynamic reduction approximates better high-frequency

motion than Guyan reduction. Still the dependence of
Tdynamic on constitutes the choice of an appropriate initial frequency, which is not a trivial task.
C. Improved Reduction System Method (IRS)
IRS perturbs the static transformation by taking into account the inertia terms as pseudo-static forces [1]. By using
the free vibration of the equivalent to (3) reduced system
and the basic equations of Guyan reduction the transformation matrix for IRS is obtained:


1
1
xs = K1
ss Ksm + Kss SMR KR xm


Mss K1
ss Ksm

xm
xs

S = Msm


0
= TIRS xm , P =
0

0
K1
ss

TIRS = Tstatic + PMTstatic M1

R KR

(9)

TIRS depends on the reduced mass and stiffness matrices

obtained by the static reduction. In order to minimize the
error produced by this scheme, IRS could be extended to
the iterated IRS method [8], where the improved estimates
MR , KR are used in the definition of TIRS according to the
subsequent iterations:
TIRS,i+1 = Tstatic + PMTIRS,i MR 1
,i KR ,i

(10)

The subscript i denotes the i-th iteration. In (10) TIRS,i

is the current IRS transformation and MR ,i , KR ,i are the
associated reduced system matrices. A new transformation
TIRS,i+1 is obtained, which then becomes the current IRS
transformation for the next step.
The algorithm converges to yield the eigenvalues and
eigenvectors of the full system. However, the reduced IRS
stiffness matrix is stiffer than the analogous Guyan or Dynamic reduced matrix producing small deviations by orthogonality checks.

l nm
Thus, the transformation matrix for the CMS method is obtained:





I 0
xm
xm
x=
= Tcms
(13)

y
y
CMS as IRS delivers good approximation results of the reduced structure with a drawback of having to define what
kind of lower eigenvectors [5] (rigid or non-rigid body) and
how many are to be introduced for the Craig-Bampton set.
E. System Equivalent Expansion Reduction Process (SEREP)
In SEREP [3] the eigenmodes and eigenfrequencies of
the original full model are calculated. Thus x = q, where
is the modal matrix and q the modal coordinate. By
partitioning the displacement x and the modal matrix into
the active (master) and omissive (slave) part we have
 


m
xm
(14)
=
+

m xm = TSEREP xm
xs
s
where +
:= (Tm m )1 Tm , the m pseudom
inversion.
SEREP approximates high-frequency motion (eigenfrequencies and eigenvectors) perfectly, up to the predefined
limit.
F. Krylov Subspace Method
 Rnn , a start vector
Suppose the constant matrix A
n1
+
R
and q Z . The Krylov subspace is defined as
b
follows:


 b)
 := span b,
 A
 b,
 ...,A
 q1 b
 ,
Kq (A,
 A
 ...,
 b,
a subspace spanned by the q column-vectors b,
q1 

A b. In the case of undamped systems of the form (3),
 K1 M and b
 K1 f , i.e
it is proved that A
M
x(t) + Kx(t) = f Tkrylov Kq (K1 M, K1 f )

Tkrylov =

(15)

span K1 f , (K1 M)K1 f , . . . , (K1 M)q1 K1 f .


(3) can always be written as an input-output system if we

write the outputs as a linear combination of states
y = CT x

(16)

An evidence that proves Krylovs reduction efficiency of

{(3), (16)} is the equality of some input-output behavior parameters for both full and reduced {(3), (16)} unR =
 R regularity, where A
der the assumption of A
TTkrylov (K1 M)Tkrylov ; the so called moment matching [2].
Moments mi are defined as the Taylor-coefficients of
the transfer function G for the Laplace transformation of
{(3), (16)}:
G(s) = CT (s2 M + K)1 f

Ax = b, A := Kss , x := T, b := Ksm
where the last linearized equation system can be iteratively
solved for as many steps as defined by m, (10, 5 102 ) 
dim(m) << dim(n). Then T is known, i.e Tstatic is
known. This procedure is also applied for the other reduction methods.
By choosing a right preconditioner depending on the
structure of the matrix (incomplete LU-, Cholesky factorization, block Jacobi, incomplete band-diagonal in case of
band-diagonal matrices) faster convergence is achieved.
There is always the case though, in which the matrix A
is ill-conditioned (large condition number) and the selection
of a preconditioner does not accelerate the convergence resulting in a large number of iteration steps, i.e increase of
the simulation time as shown below
C(A) = max /min

(17)

It is proven that the first q moments for the full and reduced
{(3), (16)} system agree. For the first moment mR0 (reduced model) and m0 (full model) the proof is given according to [11]:
T
T
1 T
Tkrylov f
mR0 = CTR K1
R fR = CR (Tkrylov KTkrylov )

= CTR (TTkrylov KTkrylov )1 TTkrylov KTkrylov r0 = CTR r0

C : condition number , : eigenvector

NCG C, N : Number of iteration steps-CG

Different kinds of techniques [9] have been developed
(e.g deflation) in order to reduce the condition number of
the ill-posed matrix. Here a different approach is proposed.
Instead of solving the original linearized systemAx = b,
we solve the perturbed system shown below

= CT Tkrylov r0 = CT K1 f = m0

(A + Ad )x = b

Krylov subspace method is implemented using the classical

Arnoldi algorithm and a modified Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization in order to obtain the q orthonormal basis vectors.
This method ends up with well approximated eigenmodes and eigenfrequencies. The non-necessity to define
the partitioned master/slave DOF space is an advantage that
minimizes user intervention.

:= 10(n+k) ,

III. Solution Methods

All the above mentioned reduction methods (except
1
in orSEREP) require the matrix inverses K1
ss or K
der to calculate the equivalent transformation matrices
((6),(8),(9),(10),(13),(14),(15)).
Due to dim(s) dim(n) (104 , 6 105 ) a direct
calculation of the inverses using a decomposition method
(LU, LT DL, Cholesky) could lead to memory capacity
problems. For that reason iterative methods [12] are preferred, in this case the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient
Method (PCG). By taking for instance the static method,
(6) can be rewritten


xm
xs


=

I
T


xm = Tstatic xm

T = K1
ss Ksm
Kss T = Ksm

(18)

(19)

n = max {f (j), i (1, dim(A))} , k Z

jN

f (j) := 10j aii A, floating point number form

k min(j) max(j),
Ad := diag(diag(A)), diagonal matrix A
By this small perturbation of the diagonal elements of
A the eigenvalues are vastly affected reducing the condition number and consequently the convergence rate. This
method produces the following numeric error:
|(Ad )x|2 = 10(n+k) |Ad x|2 .
Simulation results of piston rod by the Krylov method have
shown that a choice of k 0 ends up with almost identical solutions for x. For the results shown in the following
chapter k = 2 is chosen.
IV. Modal Correlation Criteria (MCC)
This chapter refers to MCC [10] that are applied to the
piston rod model in order to check the correlation of the
original (full) and reduced model during a modal analysis.
The original model was discretized with FE in ANSYS.
The number of elements (tetrahedron SOLID95) produced
is nelem = 13868 and the number of nodes nnode =

23835. Each node was appointed with 3 DOFs (UX, UY,

UZ - unconstrained model). The produced system matrices (M, K) have a dimension of dim(M) = dim(K) =
(3 nnode, 3 nnode) = (71505, 71505). For the first five
previously introduced methods the master nodes respectively DOF set is selected as shown in Fig.1 The m-set is

All Methods Normalized Relative eig

All Methods Frequency Difference Comparison

x 10

2
1

Comparison

Static Red.
Dyn.Reduction
CMS
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.6
0.4

0
1
0

dif

0.8
Static Red.
Dyn.Reduction
CMS
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.2

10

12

14

0
0

IRS, SEREP, Krylov Relative eigdif

0.2

5
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.15

10

12

14

SEREP, Krylov Relative eigdif

x 10

SEREP
Krylov

4
3

0.1
2
0.05
0
0

1
2

10

12

14

0
0

10

12

14

Fig. 3. eigdif and reigdif - Piston Rod

eigenvectors are mass-normalized.

Fig. 1. Master Nodes Selection - Piston Rod

modM ACk,l =
selected according to standard criteria [13] made for this
purpose. The number, though, of master nodes is restricted
(m = 10); this is done in order to prove that a possible inappropriate master node selection vastly affects the results
of certain reduction methods.
The re-ordering into block matrices according to (5) produces a different sparsity pattern (Fig.2) for the system
matrices, because of the wavefront solver implemented in
ANSYS for the solution of the linearized system.
The sparsity pattern of the stiffness matrix K is the
same, but with notedly more non-zero elements.

(Tk Ml )2
T
(k Mk )(Tl Ml )

k : k-th eigenvector of the full model

l : l-th expanded eigenvector
The dimension of the eigenvectors must be the same; eiAll Methods modMAC Comparison

1
0.8
0.6
0.4

Static Red.
Dyn.Reduction
CMS
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.2
0
0

10

12

14

10

12

14

Compare Best Methods: IRS, SEREP, Krylov

1
0.8
0.6

IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.4
0.2
0
0

Fig. 4. modM AC - Piston Rod

Fig. 2. Mass matrix produced by ANSYS (right) - Re-Ordered Mass

Matrix (left)

A. Eigenfrequency Comparison
Theory implies the eigenfrequencies of the reduced
model to be higher as the eigenfrequencies of the
original (full) model. Thus, in Fig.3 the difference
eigdif := eigsub eigf ull and normalized relative difference reigdif := |eigsub eigf ull |2 / |eigsub |2 for the first
14 of the non-rigid body eigenfrequencies are presented.
B. Modified Modal Assurance Criterion (modMAC)
modMAC gives information concerning the eigenvectors angle; by this criterion (in comparison to MAC) the

ther the reduced are expanded to the dimension of the original via the transformation matrix or the opposite. A value
modM AC = 1 means absolute correlation; the less this
value becomes, the worst the eigenvector correlation is, as
shown in Fig. 4. The correlation of the first six eigenvectors is unimportant, since it concerns the rigid body motion
eigenvectors, which are generally of no interest. Thus the
x-axes of Fig. 4,Fig. 5, Fig. 6 depict the 14 eigenvectors
starting from the 7th up to the 20th.
C. Mass Normalized Vector Difference (MNVD)
This criterion gives the relative vector difference of massnormalized eigenvectors.



 f ull 
Msub M
2


M N V Dk,l =
 
Msub 
2

 f ull : modal mass of the original model

M
 sub : modal mass of the reduced model
M

makes it an important tool for modal correlation. The calculation is based on Modal Scale Factor (MSF), which is a
scale factor according to the principle of least-square error.

By this criterion all methods are identical, except for CMS,

7

14

All Methods Mass Normalized Vector Difference Comparison

x 10

Static Red.
Dyn.Reduction
CMS
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

12
10
8
6

M SFi,j =

Ti j
Ti i

k (r) : r-th coordinate of the k-th full eigenvector

4
2
0

|k (r) M SF k (r)|2
k (r)

M DMk,r =

10

12

14

Fig. 5. M N V D - Piston Rod

which gives minor deviations due to numeric implementation, in comparison to the other.
D. Stiffness Normalized Vector Difference (SNVD)
Analogously to the MNVD criterion, SNVD gives information about the relative vector difference of stiffnessnormalized eigenvectors.



 f ull 
Ksub K
2


SN V Dk,l =
 
Ksub 
2

l (r) : r-th coordinate of the l-th expanded eigenvector

Eigenvectors Nr.7,8,18 have been randomly chosen in order
to illustrate the results of this criterion shown in the figures
below.
SEREP seems to deliver the best results concerning
N M D followed by Krylov and an interchange between
IRS, CMS. All these results are discussed in the following
chapter.
4

1.5

Eigenvector 7 Static

x 10

15

10

1.5
1

0.5

0.5

0.5

1
0

5
0

6
x 10

Eigenvector 7 SEREP

Eigenvector 7 Krylov

200

100

1.5
1

8
4

x 10

Eigenvector 7 IRS

x 10

1
0

8
4

x 10

0.5

In this case results are sensitive, concerning small deviations of the modal stiffness for both the original and reduced
model as shown in Fig. 6.

Eigenvector 7 CMS

x 10

 sub : modal stiffness of the reduced model

K

2.5

0.5

2.5

 f ull : modal stiffness of the original model

K

Eigenvector 7 Dynamic

x 10

100

0
2

0.5
1
0

200

4
0

300
0

x 10

8
4

x 10

x 10

Fig. 7. N M D Eigenvector 7 - Piston Rod

All Methods Stiffness Normalized Vector Difference Comparison

1
0.8
0.6
0.4

Static Red.
Dyn.Reduction
CMS
IRS
SEREP
Krylov

Eigenvector 8 Dynamic

x 10

15

0.5

10

2
3

10

12

14

Compare Best Methods: CMS, SEREP, Krylov

0.5

4
5
0

0.35

1
0

0.3
0.25

60

0.15

50

50

40

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

12

14

Fig. 6. SN V D - Piston Rod

1
0

8
4

x 10

10
0

10
0
2

10
0

x 10

Fig. 8. N M D Eigenvector 8 - Piston Rod

E. Normalized Modal Difference (NMD)

NMD is a criterion that delivers important information
concerning the deviation of single coordinates (DOFs) of
eigenvector pairs. The fact that this criterion is normalized

Eigenvector 8 Krylov

70

60

0.05

70

0.1

x 10

x 10
Eigenvector 8 SEREP

Eigenvector 8 IRS

x 10

5
0

x 10

IRS
SEREP
Krylov

0.2

0
0

Eigenvector 8 CMS

x 10

0.2
0
0

Eigenvector 8 Static

x 10

8
4

x 10

x 10

Eigenvector 18 Static

0.5
0

4
x 10 Eigenvector 18 Dynamic

x 10

as well as other combined methods is a matter of actual research, since the obtained results constitute these
techniques competitive to the already standardized CMS
method.

Eigenvector 18 CMS

0.5
1
1.5
2
0

10

15

20
0

x 10

4
0

500

500

400

400

300

300

200

200

100

100

2
0

100
0

x 10

100
0

References
[1]
[2]

0
2

8
4

x 10
600

Eigenvector 18 Krylov

Eigenvector 18 SEREP

x 10

Eigenvector 18 IRS

600

x 10
5

[3]
2

x 10

8
4

x 10

Fig. 9. N M D Eigenvector 18 - Piston Rod

[4]
[5]
[6]

V. Results and Discussion

MCC lead to the conclusion that SEREP and Krylov deliver the best eigenfrequency/eigenvector results.
Guyan reduction is by far the least reliable method for
approximating high-frequency motion due to its static nature.
IRS, as a perturbed Guyan method, ends up with good
correlation results for the lower as well as a great number
of higher-frequency motions. The IRS transformation matrix can always be optimized by additional iteration steps
[8] reducing the modeling error and thus giving good approximation results.
CMS and Dynamic reduction are interchangeable, with
CMS yielding qualitatively much better results. The algorithms of both methods promise good correlation for highfrequency motion, but in many cases this is not feasible due
to the following reasons: the error of dynamic reduction
depends on the right choice of the initial frequency (8), the
finding of which is not a trivial task. On the other hand,
CMS depends on the definition of a sufficient number of
eigenmodes (Craig-Bampton modes) for the internal structure. Especially for the case of the piston rod, different
kinds of Craig-Bampton modes were applied, obtaining at
the end various results (for the results depicted in the figures
5 CB-eigenmodes were calculated). A selective choice of
Craig-Bampton modes belonging to the whole eigenmodes
spectrum (some of the lower, middle and higher eigenmodes) seems to radically improve the end results.
All the above results could have been improved, if a different set of master DOFs were chosen. This fact enables
Krylov as a promising reduction method for mechanical
MBS, since there is no such dependence. The user has only
to define the maximum dimension of the reduced system,
without having to select dominant eigenmodes (SEREP) or
master DOFs. Thus, user intervention is minimized.
Commercial MBS program packages contain implemented interfaces (e.g FEMBS in SIMPACK) for two of the
above mentioned reduction methods (Guyan, CMS). The
interface implementation for the Krylov subspace method

[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
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