Application of Interpolatory Methods of Model Reduction to an Elevated Railway Pier

Be it due to time constraints or insufficient processing power - or a combination of both - the use of models with large numbers of degrees of freedom (DoF) may be unsuitable to provide a client with results in a timely manner. The use of physics-based reduced models - or proxy structures - are popular among practitioners to solve this issue, as they keep intact all the underlying properties of the second order problems at a fraction of the cost. In this paper, interpolatory methods of model reduction are explored as an alternative, and applied to a 3D Space Frame. The methods chosen allow for structure-preserving reduced models and differ mainly on the selection of interpolation points. A comparison between the response of these reduced models and a proxy structure against two different types of inputs show that interpolatory methods are a viable, more flexible option when it comes to reducing the internal DoF's of a structural model, though engineering judgement helps to ensure it adequately captures the most relevant aspects of the response for the specific application.