Object-oriented implementation of a graph-theoretic formulation for planar multibody dynamics

The objective of this paper is to describe the object-oriented implementation and computational e¦ciency of a multibody dynamics algorithm for planar mechanical systems. The underlying formulation uses a unique combination of orthogonal projection techniques and graph-theoretic methods to automatically generate the equations of motion in terms of ÔbranchÕ co-ordinates that are selected by a user. The direct analogy between the physical components in a multibody system and the ÔobjectsÕ in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) methods is exploited in a C##implementation of the dynamic formulation. Issues associated with this OOP implementation are discussed, and the results of computer simulations are presented and examined for di¤erent sets of user-selected co-ordinates