Experimental Validation of a Flexible MBS Dynamic Formulation through Comparison between Measured and Calculated Stresses on a Prototype Car

Numerical methods for the dynamics of flexible multi-body systems havebeen developed by the related scientific and technical community duringthe last two or three decades. However, most examples which can be foundin the bibliography are either very simple and/or have not beenconfronted with the results of real tests. The solution of realistic andcomplex problems along with their corresponding experimental validation,will be useful to evaluate the different formulations available, andwill make them more valuable for the industrial world.On the other hand, stress calculation is essential for themechanical design of machines and mechanisms. An adequate way tonumerically solve this problem consists of modeling the flexibility ofthose links whose stresses are of interest for the designer. In theexperimental field, the well-established technique of extensometryenables the measurement of the stresses suffered by the actualcomponents.Therefore, the dynamic simulation of realistic and complexmulti-body systems giving as output the stresses undergone by componentsduring the motion, and the comparison with the correspondingexperimental results, should be attempted in order to credit thevalidity of a certain numerical method. In this work, the abovementionedobjective has been addressed. A prototype car has been taken as anexample of complex and realistic multi-body system. The actual vehiclehas been built and its virtual counterpart has been implemented on acomputer.