Constrained integration of rigid body dynamics

In the present paper rigid body dynamics is formulated as mechanical system with holonomic constraints. This approach offers the appealing possibility to deal with finite rotations without employing any specific rotational pa rameterization. The numerical discretization of the underlying system of di fferential algebraic equations is treated in detail. The proposed algorithm obeys major conservation laws of the underlying continuous system such as conservation of energy and angular momentum. In addition to that, the const raints on the configuration and momentum level are fulfilled exactly. Two n umerical examples are dealt with to assess the performance of the constrain ed algorithm. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.