Singularly Perturbed Bond Graph Models for Simulation of Multibody Systems

Abstract

This paper develops a bond graph-based formalism for modeling multibody systems in a singularly perturbed formulation. As opposed to classical multibody modeling methods, the singularly perturbed formulation is explicit, which makes it suitable for modular simulation. Kinematic joints that couple rigid bodies are described by a set of differential equations with an order of magnitude smaller time scale than that of the system. Singularly perturbed models of joints can be used to investigate nonlinear properties of joints, such as clearance and friction. The main restriction of this approach is that the simulation may need to be computed using 64 bits precision because of the two-time scale nature of the solution. The formalism is based on developing bond graph models of an elementary set of graphical velocity-based constraint functions. This set can be used to construct bond graphs of any type of mechanical joint. Here, this set is used to develop bond graphs of several joints used in multibody systems and spatial mechanisms. Complex models of multibody systems may now be built by graphically concatenating bond graphs of rigid bodies and bond graphs of joints. The dynamic equations of the system are automatically generated from the resulting bond graph model. The dynamic equation derived from the bond graph are in explicit state space form, ready for numerical integration, and exclude the computationally intensive terms that arise from acceleration analysis.