We are delighted to bring to the readers of the ASME Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics (JCND) a special issue dedicated to select papers from the 18th International Conference on Multibody Systems, Nonlinear Dynamics, and Control (MSNDC), held during the 2022 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering (IDETC-CIE) Conferences.
In the last few years, it has become a tradition to collate such a Special Issue with some of the most interesting and relevant papers presented at MSNDC. At its 18th edition in 2022, MSNDC is the main conference in multibody dynamics and nonlinear control in the United States and provides an international venue where researchers and practitioners present an early glimpse into their highest-quality research and development. JCND was established in 2005, at the initiative of the ASME Technical Committee (TC-MSND) that is also organizing the annual MSNDC conferences. Under the steady and effective leadership of its past (Subhash C. Sinha, Ahmed Shabana, and Bala Balachandran) and current (Bogdan Epureanu) Editors-in-Chief, JCND has become a premier ASME journal which “serves as a forum for the exchange of new ideas and applications in computational dynamics, multibody system dynamics, and all aspects (analytical, numerical, and experimental) of dynamics associated with nonlinear systems.” It is in this spirit that we share with you some of the most exciting work presented at MSNDC-2022.
Held as the first in-person meeting after the global Covid pandemic, the 2022 edition of the IDETC-CIE conferences took place in St. Louis, MS, August 14–17, 2022. With the world emerging from the constraints imposed by the pandemic and with travel safety and security limitations still in place, the IDETC-CIE conferences nonetheless managed to attract a relatively large number of submissions and participants. With this special issue we want to bring to the readership of JCND and to those colleagues of ours who were unable to attend the in-person conference some of the highlights of the MSNDC conference; furthermore, we hope to use this mechanism to remind the community at large of the ASME IDETC-CIE conferences and their continuing impact on the field over the years and encourage higher participation; finally, we aim to benefit JCND and its readership by presenting recent and innovative work in the core topics of the journal.
Selected from the papers recommended by the conference paper reviewers and symposium organizers for the MSNDC Best Paper award, manuscripts considered for this special issue underwent the conference review process, an additional scoring for the MSNDC Best Paper competition, and finally the standard JCND review process. The twelve papers that comprise the final special issue cover a spectrum of topics central to both MSNDC and JCND. They present both theoretical and applied research, as well as both analytical and computational approaches to problems in diverse areas, ranging from frictional contact in nonlinear finite element analysis, to optimal control, nonlinear stability analysis, terramechanics, servo-controlled precision motion, swarm robotics, aerodynamic stability, and to nonlinear dynamics in atomic force microscopy.
We are indeed very happy to have had the opportunity to organize this special issue. Special thanks to Prof. Bogdan I. Epureanu for giving us this opportunity and to Amy Suski for helping us greatly at every step of the process. It was great working as a team on this project and we are excited to see it come to life.
