Alternative Forms
A specialization of the principle of virtual forces is the unit dummy force method, which is very useful for computing displacements in structural systems. According to D'Alembert's principle, inclusion of inertial forces as additional body forces will give the virtual work equation applicable to dynamical systems. More generalized principles can be derived by:
- allowing variations of all quantities.
- using Lagrange multipliers to impose boundary conditions and/or to relax the conditions specified in the two states.
These are described in some of the references.
Among the many energy principles in structural mechanics, the virtual work principle deserves a special place due to its generality that leads to powerful applications in structural analysis, solid mechanics, and finite element method in structural mechanics.
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