A multibody system is used to model the dynamic behavior of interconnected rigid or

flexible bodies, each of which may undergo large translational and rotational displacements.

[edit] Introduction
The systematical treatment of the dynamic behavior of interconnected bodies has led to a
large number of important multibody formalisms in the field of mechanics. The simplest
bodies or elements of a multibody system were already treated by Newton (free particle) and
Euler (rigid body). Euler already introduced reaction forces between bodies. Later on, a series
of formalisms have been derived, only to mention Lagrange’s formalisms based on minimal
coordinates and a second formulation that introduces constraints.

Basically, the motion of bodies is described by its kinematics behavior. The dynamic
behavior results due to the equilibrium of applied forces and the rate of change in the
momentum. Nowadays, the term multibody system is related to a large number of
engineering fields of research, especially in robotics and vehicle dynamics. As an important
feature, multibody system formalisms usually offer an algorithmic, computer-aided way to
model, analyze, simulate and optimize the arbitrary motion of possibly thousands of
interconnected bodies.

[edit] Applications
While single bodies or parts of a mechanical system are studied in detailed with finite
element methods, the behavior of the whole multibody system is usually studied with
multibody system methods within the areas:

 Physics engine
 Robotics
 Vehicle simulation (vehicle dynamics, rapid prototyping of vehicles, improvement of
stability, comfort optimization, improvement of efficiency, ...)
 Biomechanics
 Aerospace engineering (helicopter, landing gears, behavior of machines under
different gravity conditions)
 Combustion engine, gears and transmissions, chain drive, belt drive
 Hoist, conveyor, paper mill
 Particle simulation (granular media, sand, molecules)
 Dynamic simulation
 Military applications

[edit] Example
The following example shows a typical multibody system. It is usually denoted as slider-
crank mechanism. The mechanism is used to transform rotational motion into translational
motion by means of a rotating driving beam, a connection rod and a sliding body. In the
present example, a flexible body is used for the connection rod. The sliding mass is not
allowed to rotate and three revolute joints are used to connect the bodies. While each body
has six degrees of freedom in space, the kinematical conditions lead to one degree of freedom
for the whole system.

The motion of the mechanism can be viewed in the following gif animation

[edit] Concept
A body is usually considered to be a rigid or flexible part of a mechanical system (not to be
confused with the human body). An example of a body is the arm of a robot, a wheel or axle
in a car or the human forearm. A link is the connection of two or more bodies, or a body with
the ground. The link is defined by certain (kinematical) constraints that restrict the relative
motion of the bodies. Typical constraints are:

 spherical joint; constrains relative displacements in one point, relative rotation is

allowed; implies 3 kinematical constraints
 revolute joint; only one relative rotation is allowed; implies 5 kinematical constraints;
see the example above
 prismatic joint; relative displacement along one axis is allowed, constrains relative
rotation; implies 5 kinematical constraints

There are two important terms in multibody systems: degree of freedom and constraint
condition.

[edit] Degree of freedom

The degrees of freedom denote the number of independent kinematical possibilities to move.
A rigid body has six degrees of freedom in the case of general spatial motion, three of them
translational degrees of freedom and three rotational degrees of freedom. In the case of planar
motion, a body has only three degrees of freedom with only one rotational and two
translational degrees of freedom.

The degrees of freedom in planar motion can be easily demonstrated using e.g. a computer
mouse. The degrees of freedom are: left-right, up-down and the rotation about the vertical
axis.
[edit] Constraint condition

A constraint condition implies a restriction in the kinematical degrees of freedom of one or

more bodies. The classical constraint is usually an algebraic equation that defines the relative
translation or rotation between two bodies. There are furthermore possibilities to constrain
the relative velocity between two bodies or a body and the ground. This is for example the
case of a rolling disc, where the point of the disc that contacts the ground has always zero
relative velocity with respect to the ground. In the case that the velocity constraint condition
cannot be integrated in time in order to form a position constraint, it is called non-holonomic.
This is the case for the general rolling constraint. In addition to that there are non-classical
constraints that might even introduce a new unknown coordinate, such as a sliding joint,
where a point of a body is allowed to move along the surface of another body. In the case of
contact, the constraint condition is based on inequalities and therefore such a constraint does
not permanently restrict the degrees of freedom of bodies.

[edit] Equations of motion

The equations of motion are used to describe the dynamic behavior of a multibody system.
Each multibody system formulation may lead to a different mathematical appearance of the
equations of motion while the physics behind is the same. The motion of the constrained
bodies is described by means of equations that result basically from Newton’s second law.
The equations are written for general motion of the single bodies with the addition of
constraint conditions. Usually the equations of motions are derived from the Newton-Euler
equations or Lagrange’s equations.

The motion of rigid bodies is described by means of

(1)
(2)

This type of the equations of motion is based on so-called redundant coordinates, because the
equations use more coordinates than degrees of freedom of the underlying system. The
generalized coordinates are denoted by , the mass matrix is represented by which
may depend on the generalized coordinates. represents the constraint conditions and the
matrix (sometimes termed the Jacobian) is the derivation of the constraint conditions with
respect to the coordinates. This matrix is used to apply constraint forces to the according
equations of the bodies. The components of the vector are also denoted as Lagrange
multipliers. In a rigid body, possible coordinates could be split into two parts,

where represents translations and describes the rotations.

[edit] Quadratic velocity vector

In the case of rigid bodies, the so-called quadratic velocity vector is used to describe
Coriolis and centrifugal terms in the equations of motion. The name is because includes
quadratic terms of velocities and it results due to partial derivatives of the kinetic energy of
the body.

[edit] Lagrange multipliers

The Lagrange multiplier λi is related to a constraint condition Ci = 0 and usually represents

a force or a moment, which acts in “direction” of the constraint degree of freedom. The
Lagrange multipliers do no "work" as compared to external forces that change the potential
energy of a body.

[edit] Minimal coordinates

The equations of motion (1,2) are represented by means of redundant coordinates, meaning
that the coordinates are not independent. This can be exemplified by the slider-crank
mechanism shown above, where each body has six degrees of freedom while most of the
coordinates are dependent on the motion of the other bodies. For example, 18 coordinates and
17 constraints could be used to describe the motion of the slider-crank with rigid bodies.
However, as there is only one degree of freedom, the equation of motion could be also
represented by means of one equation and one degree of freedom, using e.g. the angle of the
driving link as degree of freedom. The latter formulation has then the minimum number of
coordinates in order to describe the motion of the system and can be thus called a minimal
coordinates formulation. The transformation of redundant coordinates to minimal coordinates
is sometimes cumbersome and only possible in the case of holonomic constraints and without
kinematical loops. Several algorithms have been developed for the derivation of minimal
coordinate equations of motion, to mention only the so-called recursive formulation. The
resulting equations are easier to be solved because in the absence of constraint conditions,
standard time integration methods can be used to integrate the equations of motion in time.
While the reduced system might be solved more efficiently, the transformation of the
coordinates might be computationally expensive. In very general multibody system
formulations and computer codes, redundant coordinates are used in order to make the
systems user-friendly and flexible.

[edit] See also

 Flexible multibody systems (multibody systems where some bodies are flexible)
 Simulation of multibody systems (solution techniques)
 Dynamic simulation
 Physics engine

[edit] References
 J. Wittenburg, Dynamics of Systems of Rigid Bodies, Teubner, Stuttgart (1977).
 K. Magnus, Dynamics of multibody systems, Springer Verlag, Berlin (1978).
 P.E. Nikravesh, Computer-Aided Analysis of Mechanical Systems, Prentice-Hall
(1988).
 E.J. Haug, Computer-Aided Kinematics and Dynamics of Mechanical Systems, Allyn
and Bacon, Boston (1989).
  H. Bremer and F. Pfeiffer, Elastische Mehrkörpersysteme, B. G. Teubner, Stuttgart,
Germany (1992).
 J. García de Jalón, E. Bayo, Kinematic and Dynamic Simulation of Multibody
Systems - The Real-Time Challenge, Springer-Verlag, New York (1994).
 A.A. Shabana, Dynamics of multibody systems, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons
(1998).
 M. Géradin, A. Cardona, Flexible multibody dynamics – A finite element approach,
Wiley, New York (2001).
 E. Eich-Soellner, C. Führer, Numerical Methods in Multibody Dynamics, Teubner,
Stuttgart, 1998 (reprint Lund, 2008).

[edit] External links

 http://real.uwaterloo.ca/~mbody/ (Collected links of John McPhee)