Multibody

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of multibody and mechatronic systems. Topics addressed include the analysis and synthesis of mechanisms; dynamics of multibody systems; design algorithms for mechatronic systems; robots and micromachines; experimental validations; theory of mechatronic simulation; mechatronic systems for rehabilitation and assistive technologies; mechatronic systems for energy harvesting; virtual reality integration in multibody and mechatronic systems; multibody design in robotic systems; and control of mechatronic systems.

This book presents a novel theory of multibody dynamics with distinct features, including unified continuum theory, multiscale modeling technology of multibody system, and motion formalism implementation. All these features together with the introductions of fundamental concepts of vector, dual vector, tensor, dual tensor, recursive descriptions of joints, and the higher-order implicit solvers formulate the scope of the book’s content. In this book, a multibody system is defined as a set consisted of flexible and rigid bodies which are connected by any kinds of joints or constraints to achieve the desired motion. Generally, the motion of multibody system includes the translation and rotation; it is more efficient to describe the motion by using the dual vector or dual tensor directly instead of defining two types of variables, the translation and rotation separately. Furthermore, this book addresses the detail of motion formalism and its finite element implementation of the solid, shell-like, and beam-like structures. It also introduces the fundamental concepts of mechanics, such as the definition of vector, dual vector, tensor, and dual tensor, briefly. Without following the Einstein summation convention, the first- and second-order tensor operations in this book are depicted by linear algebraic operation symbols of row array, column array, and two-dimensional matrix, making these operations easier to understand. In addition, for the integral of governing equations of motion, a set of ordinary differential equations for the finite element-based discrete system, the book discussed the implementation of implicit solvers in detail and introduced the well-developed RADAU IIA algorithms based on post-error estimation to make the contents of the book complete.

This book presents the proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium on Optimal Design and Control of Multibody Systems 2022, covering research papers in the realm of optimal structural and control design for both rigid and flexible multibody systems. It delves into the application of the adjoint approach, enabling the undertaking of extensive topology optimizations to unearth body designs that excel under time- and design-dependent loads. Encompassing presentations on (adjoint) sensitivity analysis, structural optimization, optimal control, robust optimization, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computational methods and software development, the IUTAM Symposium 2022 showcased the latest breakthroughs and innovative methodologies. This book presents 14 meticulously peer-reviewed proceedings papers from the event, evenly split between the Optimal Design and Optimal Control panels.

… users on the other side of the fence … have long said that until we numerical analysts take time to write good software and get it out to the users, our ideas will not be put into action. -C.W. GEAR IN [AIKE85] This monograph is based on my doctoral thesis which I wrote dur­ ing my work at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR) at the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg. One of my intentions was and still is to stress the practical aspects leading from the conception of mathematical methods to their effective and efficient realization as scientific software. In my own experience, I had always wished there had been something to guide me through this engineering process which accompanies the basic research for which there were nu­ merous treatises dealing, e.g., with mathematical theory for descriptor systems.