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Modelling and simulation of coupled multibody systems and granular media using the non-smooth contact dynamics approach

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Abstract

Multibody models are often coupled with other domains in order to enlarge the scope of computer-based analysis. In particular, modeling multibody systems (MBSs) in interaction with granular media is of great interest for industrial process such as railway track maintenance, handling of aggregates, etc. This paper presents a strong coupling methodology for unifying a multibody formalism using relative coordinates and a discrete element method based on non-smooth contact dynamics (NSCD). Both tree-like and closed-loop MBSs are considered. For the latter, the coordinate partitioning techniques is applied in the NSCD framework. The proposed approach is applied on the slider–crank mechanism benchmark. Results are in very good agreement with results obtained with other techniques from the literature. Finally, a multibody model of a tamping machine is coupled to a discrete element model of railway ballast in order to analyse efficiency of track maintenance. This application demonstrates that the dynamics of the machine must be taken into account so as to estimate the performance of the maintenance process correctly.

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Notes

  1. https://git-xen.lmgc.univ-montp2.fr/lmgc90/lmgc90_user.

  2. http://www.robotran.eu.

  3. Simulations are performed on a Dual Intel Xeon Processor E5-2637v3 (4C HT, 15MBCache, 3.5GHzTurbo).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rémy Mozul for his help in the numerical implementation of the coupling method presented in this paper.

This work was supported by the Wallonia and by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS of Belgium via a FRIA grant and a postdoctoral research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil engineering, Université catholique de Louvain, Place du Levant 2, 1340, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Nicolas Docquier & Olivier Lantsoght

  2. LMGC, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Frédéric Dubois

  3. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Liège, Allée de la Découverte 9, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Olivier Brüls

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  1. Nicolas Docquier
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Correspondence to Nicolas Docquier.

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Docquier, N., Lantsoght, O., Dubois, F. et al. Modelling and simulation of coupled multibody systems and granular media using the non-smooth contact dynamics approach. Multibody Syst Dyn 49, 181–202 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-019-09721-0

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