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An efficient and robust contact algorithm for a compliant contact force model between bodies of complex geometry

Juhwan Choi, Han Sik Ryu, ChangWan Kim, Jin Hwan Choi, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Multibody System Dynamics, January 2010, Volume 23, Issue 1, pp 99-120.

Abstract

Dynamic analysis of many mechanical systems often involves contacts among rigid bodies. When calculating the contact force with a compliant contact force model, a penetration depth and a contact reference frame (a contact point and normal and tangent directions) should be determined from the geometrical information of the rigid body surfaces. In order to improve the speed and robustness of the contact analysis, this paper proposes a contact search algorithm for surfaces composed of triangles. This algorithm is divided into two parts, the pre-search and the detailed search. In the pre-search, a bounding box tree and an overlap test are used to find intersecting triangle pairs, and triangle connectivity information is used to identify and separate multiple contact regions. Then an efficient and robust detailed search algorithm is proposed, where the penetration depth and contact reference frame are determined from the results of the pre-search. Finally, the contact force for each contact region is calculated from a modified compliant contact force model. Numerical examples are also presented to illustrate the accuracy and performance.

How Multibody Dynamics Simulation Technology is Used

This paper presents an efficient and robust contact search algorithm implemented in RecurDyn for a compliant contact force model between bodies of complex geometry in multibody dynamics. The proposed contact algorithm contains two parts, the pre-search and the detailed search. RecurDyn’s contact definitions are both accurate and efficient.