Aspects of Symbolic Formulations in Flexible Multibody Systems

The symbolic modeling of flexible multibody systems is a challenging task. This is especially the case for complex-shaped elastic bodies, which are described by a numerical model, e.g., an FEM model. The kinematic and dynamic properties of the flexible body are in this case numerical and the elastic deformations are described with a certain number of local shape functions, which results in a large amount of data that have to be handled. Both attributes do not suggest the usage of symbolic tools to model a flexible multibody system. Nevertheless, there are several symbolic multibody codes that can treat flexible multibody systems in a very efficient way. In this paper, we present some of the modifications of the symbolic research code Neweul-M² which are needed to support flexible bodies. On the basis of these modifications, the mentioned restrictions due to the numerical flexible bodies can be eliminated. Furthermore, it is possible to re-establish the symbolic character of the created equations of motion even in the presence of these solely numerical flexible bodies.