Dynamics of Multibody Systems With Variable Kinematic Structure

The problem of predicting the dynamic behavior of a general multibody system subject to kinematic structure changes is addressed using a mixed set of Lagrangian coordinates. Changes in the kinematic structure may occur smoothly or accompanied by a change in the system momenta. The finite element method is employed to estimate the modal characteristics of flexible bodies. An automated pieced-interval computational scheme that accounts for the change in the dynamic characteristics due to the imposition of new sets of constraints on the boundaries of flexible components is developed. The resulting change in the deformation modes and the associated change in basis of the configuration space requires a new set of generalized coordinates for each subinterval of the analysis. A numerical example is used to demonstrate the analysis scheme developed in this paper.