A constraint‐stabilized time‐stepping approach for rigid multibody dynamics with joints,contact and friction

We present a method for achieving geometrical constraint stabilization for a linear‐complementarity‐based time‐stepping scheme for rigid multibody dynamics with joints, contact, and friction. The method requires the solution of only one linear complementarity problem per step. We prove that the velocity stays bounded and that the constraint infeasibility is uniformly bounded in terms of the size of the time step and the current value of the velocity. Several examples, including one for joint‐only systems, are used to demonstrate the constraint stabilization effect. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A method for structural dynamic contact problems with friction and wear

A method for structural dynamic contact problems with friction and wear is suggested. The method is obtained by including wear in the non‐smooth contact dynamics method of Moreau. A comparison of the method to the discrete energy‐momentum method of Simo and Tarnow is also outlined briefly. The fully discrete equations are treated using the augmented Lagrangian approach, where a non‐smooth Newton method is used as the equation solver. Two two‐dimensional examples are solved by the method. It is investigated how solutions of contact, friction and wear are influenced by inertia. It is shown that the quasi‐static assumption might be questionable for solving contact problems with friction and wear. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A time‐stepping method for stiff multibody dynamics with contact and friction

We define a time‐stepping procedure to integrate the equations of motion of stiff multibody dynamics with contact and friction. The friction and non‐interpenetration constraints are modelled by complementarity equations. Stiffness is accommodated by a technique motivated by a linearly implicit Euler method. We show that the main subproblem, a linear complementarity problem, is consistent for a sufficiently small time step h. In addition, we prove that for the most common type of stiff forces encountered in rigid body dynamics, where a damping or elastic force is applied between two points of the system, the method is well defined for any time step h. We show that the method is stable in the stiff limit, unconditionally with respect to the damping parameters, near the equilibrium points of the springs. The integration step approaches, in the stiff limit, the integration step for a system where the stiff forces have been replaced by corresponding joint constraints. Simulations for one‐ and two‐dimensional examples demonstrate the stable behaviour of the method. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A semi‐implicit time‐stepping model for frictional compliant contact problems

In this paper, we formulate a semi‐implicit time‐stepping model for multibody mechanical systems with frictional, distributed compliant contacts. Employing a polyhedral pyramid model for the friction law and a distributed, linear, viscoelastic model for the contact, we obtain mixed linear complementarity formulations for the discrete‐time, compliant contact problem. We establish the existence and finite multiplicity of solutions, demonstrating that such solutions can be computed by Lemke's algorithm. In addition, we obtain limiting results of the model as the contact stiffness tends to infinity. The limit analysis elucidates the convergence of the dynamic models with compliance to the corresponding dynamic models with rigid contacts within the computational time‐stepping framework. Finally, we report numerical simulation results with an example of a planar mechanical system with a frictional contact that is modelled using a distributed, linear viscoelastic model and Coulomb's frictional law, verifying empirically that the solution trajectories converge to those obtained by the more traditional rigid‐body dynamic model. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.     

Treatment of contact separation in Eulerian high‐speed multimaterial dynamic simulations

A frictionless contact separation treatment in a sharp‐interface Eulerian framework is presented to handle the general situation of high‐speed impact and separation of materials. The algorithm has been developed for an established Eulerian‐based Cartesian grid multimaterial flow code in which the interfaces are tracked in a sharp manner using a standard narrow‐band level set approach. Boundary conditions have been applied using a modified ghost fluid method for elasto‐plastic materials. The sharp‐interface treatment maintains the distinct interacting interfaces without smearing the contact zone while also removing the difficulties associated with Lagrangian moving mesh entities in contact‐separation situations. The algorithm has been tested and verified against experimental and numerical results for three different problems in the high strain rate regime, which involve contact, separation and sliding of materials. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Krylov subspace and spectral methods for solving complementarity problems in many‐body contact dynamics simulation

Many‐body dynamics problems are expected to handle millions of unknowns when, for instance, investigating the three‐dimensional flow of granular material. Unfortunately, the size of the problems tractable by existing numerical solution techniques is severely limited on convergence grounds. This is typically the case when the equations of motion embed a differential variational inequality problem that captures contact and possibly frictional interactions between rigid and/or flexible bodies. As the size of the physical system increases, the speed and/or the quality of the numerical solution decreases. This paper describes three methods – the gradient projected minimum residual method, the preconditioned spectral projected gradient with fallback method, and the modified proportioning with reduced gradient projection method – that demonstrate better scalability than the projected Jacobi and Gauss–Seidel methods commonly used to solve contact problems that draw on a differential‐variational‐inequality‐based modeling approach. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic stiffness vibration analysis using a high‐order beam model

This work presents the derivation of the exact dynamic stiffness matrix for a high‐order beam element. The terms are found directly from the solutions of the differential equations that describe the deformations of the cross‐section according to the high‐order theory, which include cubic variation of the axial displacements over the cross‐section of the beam. The model has six degrees of freedom at the two ends, one transverse displacement and two rotations, and the end forces are a shear force and two end moments. Using the dynamic stiffness matrix exact vibration frequencies for beams with various combinations of boundary conditions are tabulated and compared with results from the Bernoulli–Euler and Timoshenko beam models. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 3D beam‐to‐beam contact finite element for coupled electric–mechanical fields

In this paper the formulation of an electric–mechanical beam‐to‐beam contact element is presented. Beams with circular cross‐sections are assumed to get in contact in a point‐wise manner and with clean metallic surfaces. The voltage distribution is influenced by the contact mechanics, since the current flow is constricted to small contacting spots. Therefore, the solution is governed by the contacting areas and hence by the contact forces. As a consequence the problem is semi‐coupled with the mechanical field influencing the electric one. The electric–mechanical contact constraints are enforced with the penalty method within the finite element technique. The virtual work equations for the mechanical and electric fields are written and consistently linearized to achieve a good level of computational efficiency with the finite element method. The set of equations is solved with a monolithic approach. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contact with friction between beams in 3‐D space

In this paper a formulation to deal with friction between straight beams undergoing large displacements in 3‐D space is proposed. The detection of the contact point and the computation of the amount of sliding are carried out using a completely symmetric treatment between the two contacting beams. Starting from the virtual work equation the consistent linearization of the frictional contact contribution is computed and the complete equation set is arranged in matrix form suitable for FE implementation. Some numerical examples are added to show the effectiveness of the method. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On augmented Lagrangian algorithms for thermomechanical contact problems with friction

The detailed discretization of contact zones with contact stiffness based on real physical characteristics of contact surfaces can produce stiffness terms which induce ill-conditioning of the global stiffness matrix. Moreover the consistent treatment of frictional behaviour generates non-symmetric tangent stiffness matrices due to the non-associativity of the slip phase. Other non-symmetries are due to the coupling terms and to the dependencies on various parameters that can be involved. To overcome these difficulties almost consistent techniques based on two-step algorithms have been proposed in the past. Here an augmentation technique is proposed which takes into account micro-mechanical effects, and permits the symmetrization of the tangent stiffness during frictional slip phase.     

A linearly implicit trapezoidal method for integrating stiff multibody dynamics with contact,joints, and friction

We present a hard constraint, linear complementarity based, method for the simulation of stiff multibody dynamics with contact, joints and friction. The approach uses a linearization of the modified trapezoidal method, incorporates a Poisson restitution model at collision, and solves only one linear complementarity problem per time step when no collisions are encountered. We prove that, under certain assumptions, the method has order two, a fact that is also demonstrated by our numerical simulations. For the unconstrained (ODE) case, the method achieves second‐order convergence and absolute stability while solving only one linear system per step. When we use a special approximation of the Jacobian matrix for the case where the stiff forces originate in springs and dampers attached to two points in the system, the linear complementarity problem can be solved for any value of the time step and numerical simulation demonstrate that the method is stiffly stable. The method was implemented in UMBRA, an industrial‐grade virtual prototyping software. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of temperature‐sensitive fatigue crack propagation of a high‐speed railway wheel rim material

The fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR) of ER8C high‐speed railway wheel rim material was tested at various service temperatures. The temperature sensitivity of fatigue crack propagation was evaluated, and the effect of temperature on the crack propagation mechanism was analyzed. The obtained results indicate a fatigue ductile‐to‐brittle transition (FDBT) point at ?20°C for the ER8C wheel rim materials. A reverse relationship was found between FCGR and temperature for the near threshold and Paris regimes when the temperature was below the FDBT point. However, no evident changing rule was found when the temperature was above this transition point. An evident fatigue crack propagation mode transition was found from lamellar tearing to intergranular cracks, which was related to the FDBT for the near‐threshold regime.     

A ‘nodeless’ dual superelement formulation for structural and multibody dynamics application to reduction of contact problems

A ‘nodeless’ superelement formulation based on dual‐component mode synthesis is proposed, in which the superelement dynamic behavior is described in terms of modal intensities playing the role of intrinsic variables. A computational scheme is proposed to build an orthogonal set of static modes so that the system matrices can have a diagonal or nearly diagonal form, providing thus high computational efficiency for application in the context of structural dynamics as well as flexible multibody dynamics. Connection to adjacent components is expressed through kinematic relationships between intrinsic variables and local displacements. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated on a simple example involving multiple unilateral contact. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stochastic analysis of strongly non-linear elastic impact system with Coulomb friction excited by white noise

The stochastic response of frictionally damped strongly non-linear elastic impact oscillator subjected to white noise excitation and its stochastic bifurcation are considered. By the stochastic averaging method based on generalized harmonic function, one can obtain the stationary probability density function of this system. The effects of system parameters on the responses are investigated and the analytical results were verified by comparing with numerical results from Monte Carlo simulations. Stochastic bifurcations are discussed through a qualitative change of the stationary probability distribution, which indicates that the coefficient of friction, damping constant of the elastic impact force respectively, can be treated as bifurcation parameters.     

Extension of the node‐to‐segment contact element for surface‐expansion‐dependent contact laws

A class of friction laws depending on the measure of contact surface expansion is defined in the paper within the continuum contact mechanics framework. The nominal and spatial forms of constitutive relations are discussed, including incremental penalty relations. Further, an extended node‐to‐segment element is derived which is capable of treating surface‐expansion‐dependent contact laws in a consistent way. The approach is suitable for any kind of node‐to‐segment contact elements. Finally, the computational efficiency of the extended element as well as other possible approaches are illustrated by numerical examples relevant to metal forming applications. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A comparison in terms of accuracy and efficiency between a MBS dynamic formulation with stress analysis and a non‐linear FEA code

To perform the mechanical design of a machine through computer‐aided techniques, at least three main different products should be used: a CAD software, to model the parts of the machine; a MBS program, to analyse the kinematics and dynamics of the whole system; and a FEA code, to determine the level of stress and strain suffered by each component. If it is true that CAD software is usually well connected with the two other tools, the same does not happen in what respects to FEA–MBS interfaces. Moreover, since both the large‐amplitude motion and the elastic deformation are coupled, they cannot be solved separately, and the usual practice consisting of first analysing the machine motion assuming rigid bodies, and then calculating stresses under the loads previously generated, is just an approximation. In order to provide mechanical designers with a tool which makes easier and shorter the design‐cycle, this paper presents a comparison between the two options that are currently available to address the mentioned problem: a dynamic MBS formulation which simultaneously solves motion and performs stress analysis by considering flexible bodies; and a non‐linear module of a FEA code, which takes into account large displacements and finite rotations. The comparison is carried out in terms of accuracy and efficiency through four examples. The results lead to the conclusion that, for similar accuracy, the first method is largely more efficient. Therefore, the interest of developing MBS commercial codes which integrate motion calculation and stress analysis through the mentioned approach is envisioned, as long as they would provide faster solutions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

火箭橇靴轨接触特性数值分析

为研究火箭橇靴轨接触特性,采用Eluer-Bernouli梁单元对火箭橇橇体进行离散,建立了考虑轨道不平顺度的靴轨非线性接触力模型,通过Newmark-β结合Newton-Raphson局部迭代求解包含靴轨非线性接触力的橇轨动力学方程,并通过试验验证了数值解的正确性,数值计算结果表明:在700 m/s速度下,靴轨接触力...     

A formulation of arbitrarily shaped surface elements for three-dimensional large deformation contact with friction

The paper introduces a general theory for the numerical simulation of large deformation contact problems. The contacting bodies under consideration may be of two- or three-dimensional shape modelled by finite elements. A contact finite element which can be applied to handle multi-body contact as well as contact with rigid bodies is developed. The element is universal in the sense that it can be used as a surface element for any known finite element model and includes friction. The frictional behaviour of the model obeys Coulomb's law of friction distinguishing between sticking and sliding contact. The algorithmic treatment is based on a penalty formulation for the normal and sticking contact. The corresponding consistent tangential stiffness matrices are derived, leading to an overall quadratic convergence behaviour for the method. This feature is demonstrated in a number of representative examples. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parallel and multiscale strategy for the parametric study of transient dynamic problems with friction

The objective of this work is to develop an efficient strategy for the parametric study of dynamic problems involving contacts with friction. Our approach is based on the multiscale LATIN method with domain decomposition. This is a mixed method that deals with the forces and velocities at the interfaces between the different subdomains simultaneously. We propose to take advantage of the capability of the multiscale LATIN method, called the multiparametric strategy, to reuse the solution of a given problem in order to solve similar problems. This strategy has already been applied successfully to a variety of static problems; here, it is extended to dynamics. First, we present the multiscale strategy in dynamics. Then, we show how the multiparametric strategy can be extended to dynamics. We illustrate the capabilities of the method through an academic 3D example and the simulation of a bolted joint. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.