Computational procedure for simulating the contact/impact response in flexible multibody systems

A computational procedure for simulating the contact/impact response in flexible multibody systems is presented. The multibody system is discretized by using beam and shell finite element models. The conservation of momentum and restitution equations are used as local velocity constraints to determine the ‘post-impact’ velocities of the impacting nodes. In case a node impacts an element edge, the impact effect is distributed to the element nodes by using the element shape functions. Two restitution parameters—one in the normal impact direction and the other in the tangential impact directions—can be used to model friction. Two numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the procedure.