Toward a New Modeling Paradigm for Constrained Mechanical Systems

The motivational background and a comprehensive modeling framework for incorporating localized design details of joints in the overall multibody models are described in this paper. A direct contact model of two bodies in contact is utilized as a basic building block to develop spatial kinematic analysis procedures based on matrix analysis. A substructure partitioning method for large, detailed models and the concept of local Jacobians for localized joint models is introduced. The nonholonomic constraints are directly incorporated in the matrix method, with the special case of rolling without slipping described in this paper. The coordinate partitioning process is shown to play a fundamental role in the simulation algorithms. The developments reported in this paper represent initial steps toward a comprehensive modeling paradigm for multibody systems with a focus on the localized details of contacts between the bodies.