An explicit time integration method is presented for the linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses of structures. Using two parameters and employing the Taylor series expansion, a family of second-order accurate methods for the solution of dynamic problems is derived. The proposed scheme includes the central di®erence method as a special case, while damping is shown to exert no e®ect on the solution accuracy. The proposed method is featured by the following facts: (i) the relative period error is almost zero for speci¯c values of the parameters; (ii) the numerical dissipation contained can help ¯lter out spurious high-frequency components; and (iii) the crucial lower modes are generally una®ected in the integration. Although the proposed method is conditionally stable, it has an appropriate region of stability, and is self-starting. The numerical tests indicate the improved performance of the proposed technique over the central di®erence method.

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