| This dissertation presents an improved method for studying the dynamics of multibody systems. The method represents a modification and extension of recently developed procedures for multibody dynamics analyses. The principal features of these methods are the use of body connection arrays to describe the connection configuration of the system and the use of Kane's equations to obtain the dynamical equations of motion. These methods however, also use relative coordinates to define the kinematics of the system. In this dissertation absolute coordinates are employed. Although not as intuitive as relative coordinates, absolute coordinates as used herein are shown to dramatically improve the computational efficiency and accuracy.;Finally, the procedures developed in this dissertation are ideally suited for numerical analyses. To demonstrate this, a computer program based upon the procedures is prepared. A few examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of this algorithm. |
