Multibody Simulation Of A Truss Structure Using FiniteElement Results

Abstract

In multibody simulations the elastic deformations of bodies need to be taken into consideration because of the present tendency towards lightweight constructions resulting in a higher degree of flexibility. In most of the applications it is acceptable to consider small deformations only, which allow linearisation. For that purpose the movements of these bodies are decomposed into large rigid body motions as well as superimposed small elastic deformations. The paper describes a method to linearise the equations of motions using perturbation techniques, which results in considerable computational savings. The volume integrals which appear in the corresponding equations of motion due to a Ritz approximation of the deformations are calculated from finite element models. The efficiency of the approach will be demonstrated by multibody simulations of the spin up manoeuvre of a truss structure for future space stations.