DYNAMICS OF FLEXIBLE BEAMS FOR MULTIBODY SYSTEMS - A COMPUTATIONAL-PROCEDURE

A computational procedure suitable for the solution of equations of motions for flexible multibody systems has been developed. The flexible beams are modeled using a nonlinear rod-type theory which accounts for both finite rotations and large deformations. The present formulation incorporates physical measures of conjugate Cauchy stress and covariant strain increments referenced with respect to a convected coordinate system. As a consequence, the beam model can easily be interfaced with real-time strain measurements and feedback control systems. A distinct feature of the present work is the computational preservation of total energy for undamped systems; this is obtained via an objective strain increment/stress update procedure combined with an energy-conserving time integration algorithm which contains an accurate update of angular orientations. The procedure is demonstrated via several example problems.