The Drazin inverse in multibody system dynamics (Q1326389)

This paper is concerned with the numerical solution of the differential algebraic equations (DAEs) which describe the simulation of mechanical multibody systems. Although the DAEs generated automatically by multibody formalisms are an index three set of nonlinear equations, the authors point out that the study of the linearized equations is a useful tool to decide the most convenient integration schemes and the stabilization process and therefore a study of the linear case makes sense not only from a theoretical but also from a practical point of view. In the context of the linear DAEs, the authors show that the use of the Drazin inverse allows to give a complete description of the general solution for the case of the index three formulation as well as for the equivalent formulations with indexes two or one. To illustrate the above results the DAEs of the multibody system arising in a simplified truck model are considered, showing that the analysis of the linearized model allows to refine the parameters of the original problem. Finally, some remarks on the extension of the above theory to nonlinear index two systems are given.