Flexible Multibody Dynamics: Efficient Formulations And Applications

This book describes how to build mathematical models of multibody systems with elastic components. Examples of such systems are the human body itself, construction cranes, cars with trailers, helicopters, spacecraft deploying antennas, tethered satellites and underwater maneuvering vehicles looking for mines while being connected by a cable to a ship. Equations of motion for these complex systems are derived by using Kane’s method. Kane’s equations are chosen, for reasons of reduced labor in deriving the equations and simplicity of the final equations. However, the materials the book covers goes beyond a direct application of Kane’s equations, to more computationally efficient algorithms like order-n formulations and block-diagonal formulations and differential-algebraic equations for systems with closed structural loops.