Dynamic analysis of 3D beams with joints in presence of large rotations

In this paper we present a way to extend the earlier static master-slave formulation for beams and joints [1] to dynamic problems. The dynamic master-slave approach is capable of (i) handling the problems of linear elasticity in a geometrically non-linear environment. (ii) accounting for the non-linear kinematics of arbitrary types of joints and (iii) performing the numerical time integration while preserving some of the important constants of motion like total energy and the total momenta for Hamiltonian systems in the absence of external loading. The performance of the formulation is demonstrated with the aid of two representative numerical examples. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.