Review of past developments in multibody system dynamics at DLR - From FADYNA to SIMPACK

Since the 1970s multibody system (MBS) approaches, their formalisms and software have been developed to generate and to solve the equations of motion of spatial multibody systems. This introductory paper gives an overview of historical and actual applications that have driven the development of MBS dynamics, summarises the basic theory of formalisms for rigid and flexible body models, and lists the milestones of MBS software implementations, in particular of the group of Willi Kortüm (German Aerospace Center DLR, Germany). Additionally, the current research on flexible body modelling, body contact problems, multi-disciplinary simulations and user interface aspects is also discussed.