ABSTRACT
A majority of systems that we have considered so far were discrete parameter systems. As stated earlier, a discrete parameter system is an assembly of rigid-body elements having mass, and massless elements that are flexible and therefore deform under load. The elements that possess mass undergo translations and rotations as a rigid body and a system coordinate or degree of freedom must be defined along each independent displacement component of such an element. A discrete system has a finite number of degrees of freedom, although for a complex system, the number of degrees of freedom may be quite large.
