Scaling of constraints and augmented lagrangian formulations in multibody dynamics simulations

This paper addresses practical issues associated with the numerical enforcement of constraints in flexible multibody systems, which are characterized by index-3 differential algebraic equations (DAEs). The need to scale the equations of motion is emphasized; in the proposed approach, they are scaled based on simple physical arguments, and an augmented Lagrangian term is added to the formulation. Time discretization followed by a linearization of the resulting equations leads to a Jacobian matrix that is independent of the time step size, h; hence, the condition number of the Jacobian and error propagation are both O(h⁰): the numerical solution of index-3 DAEs behaves as in the case of regular ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Since the scaling factor depends on the physical properties of the system, the proposed scaling decreases the dependency of this Jacobian on physical properties, further improving the numerical conditioning of the resulting linearized equations. Because the scaling of the equations is performed before the time and space discretizations, its benefits are reaped for all time integration schemes. The augmented Lagrangian term is shown to be indispensable if the solution of the linearized system of equations is to be performed without pivoting, a requirement for the efficient solution of the sparse system of linear equations. Finally, a number of numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach to scaling.