Real-Time Explicit Flexible Multibody Dynamics Solver With Application to Virtual-Reality Based E-Learning

A flexible multibody dynamics explicit time-integration parallel solver suitable for real-time virtual-reality applications is presented. The hierarchical “scene-graph” representation of the model used for display and user-interaction with the model is also used in the solver. The multibody system includes rigid bodies, flexible bodies, joints, frictional contact constraints, actuators and prescribed motion constraints. The rigid bodies rotational equations of motion are written in a body-fixed frame with the total rigid body rotation matrix updated each time step using incremental rotations. Flexible bodies are modeled using total-Lagrangian spring, truss, beam and hexahedral finite elements. The motion of the elements is referred to a global inertial Cartesian reference frame. A penalty technique is used to impose joint/contact constraints. An asperity-based friction model is used to model joint/contact friction. A bounding box binary tree contact search algorithm is used to allow fast contact detection between finite elements and other elements as well as general triangular/quadrilateral rigid-body surfaces. The real-time solver is used to model virtual-reality based experiments (including mass-spring systems, pendulums, pulley-rope-mass systems, billiards, air-hockey and a solar system) for a freshman university physics e-learning course.