Strategies for the numerical integration of DAE systems in multibody dynamics

The number of multibody dynamics courses offered in the university is increasing. Often the instructor has the necessity to go through the steps of an algorithm by working out a simple example. This gives the student a better understand of the basic theory. This paper provides a tutorial on the numerical integration of differential-algebraic equations (DAE) arising from the dynamic modeling of multibody mechanical systems. In particular, some algorithms based on the orthogonalization of the Jacobian matrix are herein discussed. All the computational steps involved are explained in detail and by working out a simple example. It is also reported a brief description and an application of the multibody code NumDyn3D which uses the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) approach. ß2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 10: 1ÿ11, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com.); DOI 10.1002/cae.20005