Multibody Dynamics Software and Numerical Simulation of High-Speed Vehicles

Abstract

The Mathematical description of general MBS usually leads to DAE's. These equations are presently subject of extensive mathematical research. This paper addresses some of the numerical topics. Several codes exist as DASSL, ODASSL, DAE 34, PATH etc. which work satisfactorily in most of the cases. However, every code can work unsatisfactorily for a particular application. Therefore a multibody simulation program should contain several codes of different types in order to treat most of the simulations efficiently. Future work has to be addressed to the questions of assisting the practicing engineer who is not familiar with the mathematical details, in selecting these options wisely (-expert systems). It is the intention of this paper to point out the present state of the art and the potential pitfalls of simulating HSGT systems.