Assessing order-(N) approach to flexible multibody dynamics

An efficient simulation has been developed to analyze the dynamics and control of spacecraft comprised of multiple flexible articulating bodies. The implementation employs a typical Order-(N) multibody dynamics approach coupled with a state-of-the-art symbolic equation optimization algorithm. The relationship among computational time, system topology, number of the bodies and number of modes per body is empirically determined. For practical application in a CHAIN topology, the computational time is proportional to NB e S 5 , where NB is the number of bodies, and NM is the number of modes per body. Applied to the analysis of Space Station Freedom (SSF), which has a TREE topology, the order of the method is demonstrated to be proportional to N M ~ , where 1.4 < A < 2.0.