FLEXIBLE BODIES IN MULTIBODY SYSTEM CODES

Multibody codes are efficient tools to simulate nonlinear dynamic beha viour of rigid and flexible multibody systems undergoing large overall motions overlaid by small elastic deformation. This paper gives an ov erview of common approaches for the equations of motion of flexible bo dy models and presents a general way to prepare the required data incl uding geometric stiffening terms. In particularly, for the nodal appro ach the data are derived using standard results of a finite element an alysis of the body. The computation of coefficient matrices describing the equations of motion is done outside the finite element code by ma trix manipulations only. The data are stored in a standardised object- oriented structure. Consequently, the data set is independent of the f ormulation of the multibody system code.