The dynamics of flexible systems, such as robot manipulators, mechanical ch
ains or cables, is becoming increasingly important in engineering. The main
question arising from the numerical modelling of large overall motions of
multibody systems is an appropriate treatment for the large rotations. In t
he present work an alternative approach is proposed leading to a time-stepp
ing numerical algorithm which achieves stable solutions combined with high
precision. In particular, in order to check the performance of the proposed
approach, two examples having preserved constants of the motion are presen
ted.