Flexible Multibody Dynamics: A Finite Element Approach

MICHEL GERADIN; ALBERTO CARDONA

John Wiley and Sons

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2001 p. 340

978-0-471-48990-0

Number of Google Scholar cites: 334 (September 2012), 503 (November 2014).This work on flexible multibody dynamics results from research projects conducted at the Aerospace Laboratory (LTAS) of the University of Liege from 1984, and at the Computational Mechanics Group (CIMEC-INTEC) of the University of Litoral, since 1990. It started with the PhD thesis of Alberto Cardona, the objective being to deal properly and in an innovative mannerwith structural deformation in multibody systems. It was initiated to fill the specific needs of the European aerospace community to model systems such as ejection mechanisms, landing gears, deployable antennas, etc. It was felt that the finite element method was by far the most efficient way to deal with structural flexibility in articulated systems. In his thesis, Alberto Cardona proposed a very general methodology to model simultaneously nonlinear structures and flexible multibody systems, establishing thus a bridge between the scientific communities of structural dynamics and multibody dynamics.The methodology has evolved progressively up to the development of the MECANO computer code. MECANO is commercially available since 1987 and is now used in other industrial sectors (such as the automotive industry). However, it has remained at the same time a research tool for the authors and their collaborators in their respective institutions.Many researchers have participated at variou s levels to this project : naming them all would be difficult . However , there are at least a few collaborators that cannot be omitted. At t he University of Liege, the cont ribut ion of Bao Doan Due has been of immense value: for many years he has anim ated the MECANO team, and demonstrated the indust rial value of the methodologyin the context of large research projects (deployable antennas, landing gears). Nor can be omitted the contribution of Daniel Rixen and Daniel Coulon on specific numerical aspects, the contribution of Damien Verhelst to produce high quality output images. At CIMEC, Alfredo Huespe contributed with many theoretical aspects and with the development of continuation methods in MECANO. Arturo Cassano should also be acknowledged for his work on time integration algorithms. Cristian Dagatti, from the Regional Research Center at Santa Fe (CERIDE), remade most drawings. The important contribution of Samtech SA has also to be acknowledged. In this company which has taken over the distribution of the MECANO software, we could benefit from the except ional competence of Philippe Jetteur and from the very professional commitment of Didier Granville, among others. Finally, the friendly collaboration with Charbel Farhat at the University of Colorado was always a stimulating one.The project could not have been achieved without the support of different organizations: the National Science Foundations of Argentina and Belgium (CONICET and FNRS), the Federal Services of Scientific Policy in Belgium (SSTC, under PAl projects ), the Ministry of Education of the French Community (Belgium), the General Direction of Technology and Research of the Walloon Region (DGTRE), the European Space Agency (under different ESTEC cont racts), the former DGXII of the European Community under Brite-Euram projects conducted by the EUROGEAR consortium.