Multi Body Dynamics Overview


Multi-Body Dynamics
Motion simulation solution for analyzing the complex behaviour of mechanical assemblies

When designing a mechanical system such as an automotive suspension or a robotic arm, you need to understand how various components(pneumatics, hydraulics, electronics, and so on) interact as well as what forces (noise, vibration, and harshness) those components generate during operation. Multi-body dynamics software is a motion simulation solution for analyzing the complex behaviour of mechanical assemblies. The use of multi-body dynamics software allows you test virtual prototypes and optimize designs for performance, safety, and comfort, without having to build and test numerous physical prototypes.

Adams and SimXpert Motion is a family of interactive multi-body dynamics software modules. A core package allows you to import geometry from most major CAD systems or to build a solid model of the mechanical system from scratch. A full library of joints and constraints is available for creating articulated mechanisms. Once the virtual prototype is complete, Adams checks the model and then runs simultaneous equations for kinematic, static, quasi-static, and dynamic simulations. Results are viewable as graph, data plots, reports, or colourful animations that you can easily share with others. You can use the results (loads created from different types of motion) of Adams simulation studies to provide loads for many different FEA programs including Nastran to optimize the structure of a design.

Several modules that are part of Adams can be used to accomplish specialized tasks and achieve better fidelity of results. For example, Adams/Flex can be used to examine the impact of flexible parts on the mechanism and Adams/Controls can be used to model control systems such as hydraulics, pneumatics, electronics and more. Adams also offers a range of modules tailored to industry specific applications. Several CAD interface modules allow you to explore the motion of CAD designs without having to leave a familiar CAD interface or transfer data into Adams.



Multi-Domain Control
Advanced software for multi-domain modelling and simulation of dynamic physical systems

Companies world-wide reduce their time to market and development costs using Easy5 - advanced software for multi-domain modelling and simulation of dynamic physical systems. Dynamic systems, those systems whose behaviour as a function of time is important, are typically defined using first-order differential (or difference) equations. Easy5 simplifies the construction and analysis of such systems by means of a graphical, schematic-based application, offering a comprehensive set of pre-packaged "components", stored in application-specific libraries, to simplify the assembly and simulation of such systems. Systems engineers work within a familiar schematic drawing environment to add and specify simple, yet complex, connections between components in an intuitive, simple-to-use, multi-level hierarchical modelling environment.

Typical applications of Easy5 include control systems, hydraulics (including thermal effects), pneumatics, gaseous flow, thermal, electrical, mechanical, refrigeration, environment control, lubrication or fuel systems, and sampled-data/discrete-time behaviour.

Work with libraries of ready-made components
Easy5 comes with extensive application-specific libraries of pre-built components enabling a variety of dynamic systems to be modelled and simulated quickly and easily. In Easy5, systems can be modelled using mathematical abstractions (summers, dividers, wave generators, and so on), pre-defined components that represent complex physical elements (pumps, gears, valves, heat exchangers, and so on), empirical data (multi-dimensional tables, functional, etc.), and user-defined code. Third-party libraries available from Ricardo offer additional capabilities in modelling power trains, internal combustion engines, fuel-cell, and hybrid vehicle systems.

Access powerful analysis tools
Another powerful aspect of Easy5 is its analysis tools, which allow nonlinear simulation, steady-state analysis, linearized analyses, control system design, data analysis and plotting. Easy5 contains some of the best numerical solvers available, specially designed to handle some of the toughest non-linear problems like stiction, hysteresis, and hard-limiting efficiently resulting in accurate answers quickly. An open architecture provides links to a broad set of popular computer-aided engineering software and hardware tools.