Multibody system

Multibody system is the study of the dynamic behavior of interconnected rigid or flexible bodies, each of which may undergo large translational and rotational displacements.

The systematic treatment of the dynamic behavior of interconnected bodies has led to a large number of important multibody formalisms in the field of mechanics. The simplest bodies or elements of a multibody system were treated by Newton (free particle) and Euler (rigid body). Euler introduced reaction forces between bodies. Later, a series of formalisms were derived, only to mention Lagrange’s formalisms based on minimal coordinates and a second formulation that introduces constraints.

Basically, the motion of bodies is described by their kinematic behavior. The dynamic behavior results from the equilibrium of applied forces and the rate of change of momentum. Nowadays, the term multibody system is related to a large number of engineering fields of research, especially in robotics and vehicle dynamics. As an important feature, multibody system formalisms usually offer an algorithmic, computer-aided way to model, analyze, simulate and optimize the arbitrary motion of possibly thousands of interconnected bodies.

While single bodies or parts of a mechanical system are studied in detail with finite element methods, the behavior of the whole multibody system is usually studied with multibody system methods within the following areas:

The following example shows a typical multibody system. It is usually denoted as slider-crank mechanism. The mechanism is used to transform rotational motion into translational motion by means of a rotating driving beam, a connection rod and a sliding body. In the present example, a flexible body is used for the connection rod. The sliding mass is not allowed to rotate and three revolute joints are used to connect the bodies. While each body has six degrees of freedom in space, the kinematical conditions lead to one degree of freedom for the whole system.

The motion of the mechanism can be viewed in the following gif animation

A body is usually considered to be a rigid or flexible part of a mechanical system (not to be confused with the human body). An example of a body is the arm of a robot, a wheel or axle in a car or the human forearm. A link is the connection of two or more bodies, or a body with the ground. The link is defined by certain (kinematical) constraints that restrict the relative motion of the bodies. Typical constraints are:

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