The author developed this text over many years, teaching graduate
courses in advanced dynamics and flexible multibody dynamics at the
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering of the Georgia
Institute of Technology.
The book presents a unified treatment of rigid body dynamics, analytical
dynamics, constrained dynamics, and flexible multibody dynamics. A
comprehensive review of numerical tools used to enforce both holonomic
and nonholonomic constraints is presented. Advanced topics such as
Maggi's, index-1, null space, and Udwadia and Kalaba's formulations are
presented because of their fundamental importance in multibody dynamics.
Methodologies for the parameterization of rotation and motion are
discussed and contrasted. Geometrically exact beams and shells
formulations, which have become the standard in flexible multibody
dynamics, are presented and numerical aspects of their finite element
implementation detailed. Methodologies for the direct solution of the
index-3 differential-algebraic equations characteristic of constrained
multibody systems are presented. It is shown that with the help of
proper scaling procedures, such equations are not more difficult to
integrate than ordinary differential equations.
This book is illustrated with numerous examples and should prove
valuable to both students and researchers in the fields of rigid and
flexible multibody dynamics.
