Background

The Dynamics Community has been borne out of the Dynamics Testing Agency. The original Dynamics Testing Agency was set up in the late 1980s through a collaboration between industry and the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry to disseminate best practice to the structural dynamic community. Its output was primarily biased towards the testing community not only to provide fundamental advice on how to implement effective testing, but also to inform users on the analysis and interpretation of results. One of the objectives of the original group was to bring together test and analysis to exploit the complementary aspects of each approach. Thus, Finite Element Model (FEM) reconciliation was one of the key activities of the Dynamics Testing Agency.

From this background a natural progression for the Dynamics Testing Agency was to form an alliance with NAFEMS and the NAFEMS Dynamics and Testing Working Group (DTWG) was formed. The common goal of the emergent Dynamics and Testing Working Group was to reinforce the links with the FE community and to bring a new constituency to NAFEMS. One of the beneficial outcomes of the Dynamics Community will be to promote a better understanding of structural dynamics through the most efficient use of testing and simulation techniques.

In 2018 the Dynamics and Testing Working Group was invited to collaborate with other NAFEMS Technical Working groups and joined the Dynamic Working Group. During this transition the Dynamics and Testing Working Group was renamed the Structural Dynamics Subgroup. This group is today the Dynamics Community.

The primary objective of the group is to provide the UK Simulation Community with state of the art and best practice in-person workshops, and also virtual events. Although the background of the current members of the group is in the field of Structural Dynamics and Vibration, the initial work will have a broader remit to bring the activities of testing and analysis closer together.