Analysis of Flexible Multi-Body Systems with Intermittent Contacts∗

This paper is concerned with the dynamic analysis of flexible, nonlinear multibody systems undergoing intermittent contacts. Contact is assumed to be of finite duration, and the forces acting between the contacting bodies which can be either rigid or deformable are explicitly computed during simulation. The modeling of contact consists of three parts: a number of holonomic constraints that define the candidate contact points on the bodies, a unilateral contact condition which is transformed into a holonomic constraint by the addition of a slack variable, and a contact model which describes the relationship between the contact force and the local deformation of the contacting bodies. This work is developed within the framework of energy preserving and decaying time integration schemes that provide unconditional stability for nonlinear, flexible multibody systems undergoing intermittent contacts.