The strain-based beam finite elements in multibody dynamics

We present a strain-based finite-element formulation for the dynamic analysis of flexible elastic planar multibody systems, composed of planar beams. We consider finite displacements, rotations and strains. The discrete dynamic equations of motion are obtained by the collocation method. The strains are the basic interpolated variables, which makes the formulation different from other formulations. The further speciality of the formulation is the strong satisfaction of the cross-sectional constitutive conditions at collocation points. In order to avoid the nested integrations, a special algorithm for the numerical integration over the length of the finite element is proposed. The midpoint scheme is used for the time integration. The performance of the formulation is illustrated via numerical examples, including a stiff multibody system.