Nonlinear model order reduction for flexible multibody dynamics: a modal derivatives approach

An effective reduction technique is presented for flexible multibody systems, for which the elastic deflection could not be considered small. We consider here the planar beam systems undergoing large elastic rotations, in the floating frame description. The proposed method enriches the classical linear reduction basis with modal derivatives stemming from the derivative of the eigenvalue problem. Furthermore, the Craig–Bampton method is applied to couple the different reduced components. Based on the linear projection, the configuration-dependent internal force can be expressed as cubic polynomials in the reduced coordinates. Coefficients of these polynomials can be precomputed for efficient runtime evaluation. The numerical results show that the modal derivatives are essential for the correct approximation of the nonlinear elastic deflection with respect to the body reference. The proposed reduction method constitutes a natural and effective extension of the classical linear modal reduction in the floating frame.