An accelerated iterative method for contact analysis

An iterative solution procedure for a frictionless contact problem is presented. Convergence to the exact solution is guaranteed by an error reduction method, and the rate of convergence is drastically improved by reduction of the ratio of extreme eigenvalues of the iteration matrix. For an ordinary linear equation, the present technique has the same theoretical value of convergence rate as the Chebyshev acceleration technique. The present acceleration technique can be directly extended for complicated frictional contact problems.     

Stability analysis of constrained multibody systems

Automated algorithms for the dynamic analysis and simulation of constrained multibody systems usually assume the rows of the constraint Jacobian matrix to be linearly independent. But during the motion, at instantaneous configurations, the Jacobian matrix may become less than full rank resulting in singularities. This occurs when the closed-loop goes from 3D to 2D type of configuration. In this paper the linearly dependent rows are identified by an uptriangular decomposition process. The corresponding constraint equations are modified so that the singularities in the numerical procedure are avoided. The conditions for the validity of the modified equations are described. Furthermore, the constraint equations expressed in accelerations are modified by Baumgarte's approach to stabilize the accumulation of the numerical errors during integration. A computational procedure based on Kane's equations is presented. Two and three-link robotic manipulators will be simulated at singular configurations to illustrate the use of the modified constraints.     

The discrete null space method for the energy consistent integration of constrained mechanical systems. Part II: multibody dynamics

In the present work, rigid bodies and multibody systems are regarded as constrained mechanical systems at the outset. The constraints may be divided into two classes: (i) internal constraints which are intimately connected with the assumption of rigidity of the bodies, and (ii) external constraints related to the presence of joints in a multibody framework. Concerning external constraints lower kinematic pairs such as revolute and prismatic pairs are treated in detail. Both internal and external constraints are dealt with on an equal footing. The present approach thus circumvents the use of rotational variables throughout the whole time discretization. After the discretization has been completed a size‐reduction of the discrete system is performed by eliminating the constraint forces. In the wake of the size‐reduction potential conditioning problems are eliminated. The newly proposed methodology facilitates the design of energy–momentum methods for multibody dynamics. The numerical examples deal with a gyro top, cylindrical and planar pairs and a six‐body linkage. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A generalized recursive formulation for constrained flexible multibody dynamics

This research develops a relative co‐ordinate formulation for the multibody flexible dynamics. The velocity transformation method is notationally compact, because the Cartesian generalized velocities are simultaneously transformed to the relative generalized velocities in a matrix form. However, inherent computational efficiency in the recursive kinematics between two adjacent bodies has not been exploited. This research presents a recursive formulation which is both notationally compact and computationally efficient. The velocity transformation method is used to derive the equations of motion and their derivatives. Matrix operations associated with the velocity transformation matrix in the resulting equations of motion and their derivatives are classified into several categories. A joint library of the generalized recursive formulas is developed for each category. When one category is encountered in implementing the equations of motion and their derivatives, the corresponding recursive formulas in the category are invoked. When a new force or joint module is added to a general purpose programme in the relative co‐ordinate formulation, the modules for the rigid body are not reusable for the flexible body. Since the flexible body dynamics handles additional generalized co‐ordinates associated with deformation, implementation of the flexible dynamics is generally complicated and prone to coding mistakes. A virtual rigid body is introduced at every joint and force reference frames. A virtual flexible body joint is introduced between two body reference frames of the virtual and original bodies. This makes a flexible body subjected to only the kinematic admissibility condition for the virtual flexible body joint. As a result, the only extra work to handle the flexible bodies is to add the virtual flexible body joint modules in all recursive formulas. Since computation time in a relative co‐ordinate formulation is approximately proportional to the number of relative co‐ordinates, computational overhead due to the additional virtual bodies and joints are minor. Meanwhile, implementation convenience is dramatically improved. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A direct violation correction method in numerical simulation of constrained multibody systems

 A new direct violation correction method for constrained multibody systems is presented. It can correct the value of state variables of the systems directly so as to satisfy the constraint equations of motion. During the integration of the dynamic equations of constrained multibody systems, this method can efficiently control the violations of constraint equations within any given accuracy at each time-step. Compared to conventional indirect methods, especially Baumgarte's Constraint Violation Stabilization Method, this method has clear physical meaning, less calculation and obvious correction effect. Besides, this method has minor effect on the form of the dynamic equations of systems, so it is stable and highly accurate. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method. Received: 17 December 1999     

A hybrid variational method for multibody dynamics

This paper presents a hybrid variational method to minimize computational effort in forming and solving the equations of motion for broad classes of rigid multibody mechanical systems. The hybrid method combines the O(n) and O(n³) recursive variational methods for forming the equations of motion in terms of joint relative co-ordinates. While the O(n³) method is more efficient than the O(n) method for systems with short chains and decoupled loops, the converse is true when the number of bodies in chains is large. The computational complexity of the O(n³) and O(n) methods in forming and solving the equations of motion is analysed as a function of the numbers of bodies, decoupled loops, joints, cut joints, cut-joint constraint equations and force elements. Based on complexity estimates, the method presented in this paper uses either the O(n) or O(n³) variational method to formulate the equations of motion for each open chain and decoupled loop in the system, to minimize the computational effort.     

An iterative method for large systems of linear structural equations

A method is described for the solution of large sets of sparse equations arising in structural analysis. This method, called partial elimination, combines the concepts of elimination and iteration in such a way that good convergence rates can be obtained using a computer storage space not much greater than that required for other iterative methods.     

An iterative rounding search-based algorithm for the disjunctively constrained knapsack problem

This article proposes an iterative rounding search-based algorithm for approximately solving the disjunctively constrained knapsack problem. The problem can be viewed as a variant of the well-known knapsack problem with some sets of incompatible items. The algorithm considers two key features: a rounding strategy applied to the fractional variables of a linear relaxation and a neighbouring strategy used for improving the quality of the solutions at hand. Both strategies are iterated into a process based on adding a series of (i) valid cardinality constraints and (ii) lower bounds used for bounding the objective function. The proposed algorithm is analysed computationally on a set of benchmark instances of the literature. The proposed algorithm outperforms the Cplex solver and the results obtained improve on most existing solutions.     

An effective solver for absolute variable formulation of multibody dynamics

This paper presents an effective and general method for converting the equations of motion of multibody systems expressed in terms of absolute variables and Lagrange multipliers into a convenient set of equations in a canonical form (constraint reaction-free and minimal-order equations). The method is applicable to open-loop and closed-loop multibody systems, and to systems subject to holonomic and/or nonholonomic constraints. Being aware of the system configuration space is a metric space, the Gram-Schmidt ortogonalization process is adopted to generate a genuine orthonormal basis of the tangent (null, free) subspace with respect to the constrained subspace. The minimal-order equations of motion expressed in terms of the corresponding tangent speeds have the virtue of being obtained directly in a resolved form, i.e. the related mass matrix is the identity matrix. It is also proved that, in the case of absolute variable formulation, the orthonormal basis is constant, which leads to additional simplifications in the motion equations and fits them perfectly for numerical formulation and integration. Other useful peculiarities of the orthonormal basis method are shown, too. A simple example is provided to illustrate the convertion steps.The research leading to this paper was supported in part by the State Committee for Scientific Research, Grant No. 3 0955 91 01     

Stability analysis of constraints in flexible multibody systems dynamics

Automated algorithms for the dynamic analysis and simulation of constrained multibody systems assume that the constraint equations are linearly independent. During the motion, when the system is at a singular configuration, the constraint Jacobian matrix possesses less than full rank and hence it results in singularities. This occurs when the direction of a constraint coincides with the direction of the lost degree of freedom. In this paper the constraint equations for deformable bodies are modified for use in the neighborhood of the singular configuration to yield the system inertia matrix which is nonsingular and also to take the actual generalized constraint forces into account. The procedures developed are applicable to both the augmented approach and the coordinate reduction methods. For the modeling of the constrained flexible multibody systems, a general recursive formulation is developed using Kane's equations, finite element method and modal analysis techniques. The system may contain revolute, prismatic, spherical or other types of joints, as well as geometrical nonlinearities; the rotary inertia is also automatically included. Simulation of a two-link flexible manipulator is presented at a singular configuration to demonstrate the utility of the method.     

A novel nonsmooth dynamics method for multibody systems with friction and impact based on the symplectic discrete format

As multibody systems often involve unilateral constraints, nonsmooth phenomena, such as impacts and friction, are common in engineering. Therefore, a valid nonsmooth dynamics method is highly important for multibody systems. An accuracy representation of multibody systems is an important performance indicator of numerical algorithms, and the energy balance can be used efficiently evaluate the performance of nonsmooth dynamics methods. In this article, differential algebraic equations (DAEs) of a multibody system are constructed using the D'Alembert's principle, and a novel nonsmooth dynamics method based on symplectic discrete format is proposed. The symplectic discrete format can maintain the energy conservation of a conservative system; this property is expected to extend to nonconservative systems with nonsmooth phenomena in this article. To evaluate the properties of the proposed method, several numerical examples are considered, and the results of the proposed method are compared with those of Moreau's midpoint rule. The results demonstrate that the solutions obtained using the proposed method, which is based on the symplectic discrete format, can realize a higher solution accuracy and lower numerical energy dissipation, even under a large time step.     

An accelerated multiplicative iterative algorithm in image reconstruction

Based on the ML‐EM (maximum likelihood expectation maximization) algorithm and AWLS (one kind of multiplicative weighted least square) reconstruction, a new algorithm named RMITC (rapid multiplicative iteration with total‐count conservation) is proposed. The new method assumes a higher order correction factor and incorporates a total‐count conservation constraint to obtain better images reconstructed while achieving a higher speed of convergence. Computer simulated phantom data and real positron emission tomography (PET) transmission data were used to compare the new method with other reconstruction algorithms, such as ML‐EM and AWLS. Results demonstrated that the new method is faster and better quantitatively than both ML‐EM and AWLS. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 12, 97–100, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10016     

An efficient high-precision recursive dynamic algorithm for closed-loop multibody systems

As most closed-loop multibody systems do not have independent generalized coordinates, their dynamic equations are differential/algebraic equations (DAEs). In order to accurately solve DAEs, a usual method is using generalized α-class numerical methods to convert DAEs into difference equations by differential discretization and solve them by the Newton iteration method. However, the complexity of this method is O(n²) or more in each iteration, since it requires calculating the complex Jacobian matrix. Therefore, how to improve computational efficiency is an urgent problem. In this paper, we modify this method to make it more efficient. The first change is in the phase of building dynamic equations. We use the spatial vector note and the recursive method to establish dynamic equations (DAEs) of closed-loop multibody systems, which makes the Jacobian matrix have a special sparse structure. The second change is in the phase of solving difference equations. On the basis of the topology information of the system, we simplify this Jacobian matrix by proper matrix processing and solve the difference equations recursively. After these changes, the algorithm complexity can reach O(n) in each iteration. The algorithm proposed in this paper is not only accurate, which can control well the position/velocity constraint errors, but also efficient. It is suitable for chain systems, tree systems, and closed-loop systems.     

Direct differentiation method for sensitivity analysis based on transfer matrix method for multibody systems

On one hand, the new version of transfer matrix method for multibody systems (NV‐MSTMM), has been proposed by formulating transfer equations of elements in acceleration level instead of position level as in the original discrete time transfer matrix method of multibody systems to study multibody system dynamics. This new formulation avoids local linearization and allows using any integration algorithms. On the other hand, sensitivity analysis is an important way to improve the optimization efficiency of multibody system dynamics. In this paper, a totally novel direct differentiation method based on NV‐MSTMM for sensitivity analysis of multibody systems is developed. Based on direct differentiation method, sensitivity analysis matrix for each kind of element is established. By assembling transfer matrices and sensitivity analysis matrices based on differentiation law of multiplication, the sensitivity analysis equation of overall transfer equation is deduced. The computing procedure of the proposed method is also presented. All these improvements as well as three numerical examples show that the direct differentiation method based on NV‐MSTMM is suitable for optimizing the dynamic sensitivity in multi–rigid‐body systems.     

Interval uncertain method for multibody mechanical systems using Chebyshev inclusion functions

This study proposes a new uncertain analysis method for multibody dynamics of mechanical systems based on Chebyshev inclusion functions The interval model accounts for the uncertainties in multibody mechanical systems comprising uncertain‐but‐bounded parameters, which only requires lower and upper bounds of uncertain parameters, without having to know probability distributions. A Chebyshev inclusion function based on the truncated Chebyshev series, rather than the Taylor inclusion function, is proposed to achieve sharper and tighter bounds for meaningful solutions of interval functions, to effectively handle the overestimation caused by the wrapping effect, intrinsic to interval computations. The Mehler integral is used to evaluate the coefficients of Chebyshev polynomials in the numerical implementation. The multibody dynamics of mechanical systems are governed by index‐3 differential algebraic equations (DAEs), including a combination of differential equations and algebraic equations, responsible for the dynamics of the system subject to certain constraints. The proposed interval method with Chebyshev inclusion functions is applied to solve the DAEs in association with appropriate numerical solvers. This study employs HHT‐I3 as the numerical solver to transform the DAEs into a series of nonlinear algebraic equations at each integration time step, which are solved further by using the Newton–Raphson iterative method at the current time step. Two typical multibody dynamic systems with interval parameters, the slider crank and double pendulum mechanisms, are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results show that the proposed methodology can supply sufficient numerical accuracy with a reasonable computational cost and is able to effectively handle the wrapping effect, as cosine functions are incorporated to sharpen the range of non‐monotonic interval functions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An accelerated automatic root search algorithm for iterative methods in vibration analysis

The paper presents an accelerated version of an automatic root searching technique developed by the authors for application to residual function iterative methods in vibration analysis. The power and generality of the accelerated method is demonstrated by application to (i) an 8 rotor torsional vibration system, and (ii) a 15 rotor torsional vibration system specially synthesized so as to have an uneven root distribution including clusters of close frequencies.     

考虑圆柱铰链间隙的多刚体系统动力学计算方法

为了研究含圆柱铰链间隙的多刚体系统动力学计算方法,针对三维圆柱铰链的结构特点,给出了一种改进的接触对确定方法,构造了空间间隙圆柱铰链接触分离切换点的判别方法。法向接触力采用Lankarani与Nikravesh的连续接触力模型计算,切向摩擦力采用修正的Coulomb模型计算,综合考虑接触分离状态建立了统一形式的动力学方程。最后对比间隙铰链机构和理想铰链机构运动,结果表明圆柱铰链间隙在短时间内对其他构件的运动影响很小,但严重增大了铰链内部的碰撞力,长时间运动后机构的位移、速度、加速度与理想铰链偏差变大,但接触摩擦力使圆柱铰链的轴向运动受到抑制。间隙圆柱铰链的研究方法和结果为相关和更复杂的含间隙圆柱铰链机构的运动分析提供了理论参考。     

Collisions of multibody systems

This paper presents a computational procedure for studying collisions of multibody systems. It combines the procedures of impact analysis and the methods of modern multibody dynamics (including the use of Kane's equations, lower body arrays, generalized speeds, and differentiation algorithms). By assuming the duration of impact to be very short and that the configurations of the systems have only small changes during the colliding process, we can automatically generate the governing dynamical equations. By using Newton's impact law, the partial velocities of the contact points determine impulse force components. Then by back substituting into the governing equations, the changes of velocities during the collision, the components of internal impulses, and the subsequent motions of the systems after collision may be determined. Received 24 January 2001     

计算多体系统动力学中引入多体系统离散时间传递矩阵法的混合算法研究

以复杂机械系统动力学建模为研究背景,在计算多体动力学和多体系统离散时间传递矩阵法的理论基础上,论述了这两种方法动力学建模与分析的特点;在此基础上,提出了在计算多体动力学中混合多体系统离散时间传递矩阵法的算法,并论述了使用该算法对机械系统进行动力学建模及分析的过程。该算法适合于对复杂机械系统进行动力学建模及分析,并且易于使用计算机应用软件实现。以某典型机械连接结构为算例,通过该算法进行建模与分析,论证了该算法的可行性,也表明该算法的优点。     

An accelerated subspace iteration method

The subspace iteration method is widely used for the computation of a few smallest eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenvectors of large eigenproblems. Under certain conditions, this method exhibits slow convergence. For improving the convergence of the method, a few acceleration techniques are already available in the literature. In this paper, yet another method is presented. The method has been applied for the computation of a few smallest eigenpairs of some typical eigenprobiems. The results indicate that the acceleration method is efficient for large eigenproblems. Simplicity, ease of computer implementation, absence of parameters whose values are to be chosen based on experience and effectiveness for large problems are the attractive features of the proposed method.