Control elements in mechanism simulation

Abstract

The work reported in this paper is a step towards a system for multidisciplinary simulation of structure, mechanism and control elements. The control part of the system is implemented as a subroutine called from the mechanism/FEM package. While Newmark's/beta-method is used to integrate the second order mechanism/FEM part, the Lobatto IIIC algorithm is applied to the first order control elements. Preliminary experiments show that this is a workable solution. The package will be further developed to include more elements, improve the performance and add enhanced graphics. The control part can easily be used as a stand alone simulator for the integration of first order differential/algebraic equations.

Keywords

• Initial value problem
• dynamic simulation
• mechanism