AN ADVISORY SYSTEM FOR THE ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF DEFORMABLE BEAM-TYPE MULTIBODY SYSTEMS

Multi-body systems can be used to model mechanisms, robots and many ot her mechanical assemblies. When these devices are subjected to high-sp eed and high accuracy requirements, their elastic behavior will merit thorough investigation. The finite element analysis and design of defo rmable multi-body systems is a very complex, iterative process requiri ng a high level of expertise and engineering intuition. This paper pre sents an advisory system developed to help a designer with the key par ameters through the analysis, design, and validation processes. The re lated knowledge such as to determine the optimum parameters for mesh, time step, type of analysis, type of element, the numerical integratio n scheme and the corresponding parameters, and the design consideratio ns such as material selection method, and geometric synthesis algorith m are also documented.