Non-linear substructure approach for dynamic analysis of rigid-flexible multibody systems

This paper presents a substructure synthesis method (SSM) for non-linear analysis of multibody systems. The detailed derivation of the equation of motion which takes into account the geometric non-linear effects of large rotation undergoing small strain elastic deformation is presented. Using the substructure synthesis approach, the equation of motion of the systems can be simplified for rigid and flexible substructures. For the flexible substructure, the equation of motion is condensed through the boundary conditions at the interface between the flexible and rigid substructures. As a result, equations of motion for multi-flexible-body systems including the geometric non-linear effects of large rotation are derived. To demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of the proposed approach, an example of a two-link manipulator was chosen for this presentation. The results using the linear and non-linear models are presented to highlight the effects of geometric non-linearities.