scholarly journals Investigation of Boundary Conditions for Flexible Multibody Spacecraft Dynamics

Author(s):  
John R. MacLean ◽  
An Huynh ◽  
Leslie J. Quiocho

In support of both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs, a set of generic multibody dynamics algorithms integrated within the Trick Simulation Environment have addressed a variety of on-orbit manipulator simulation requirements for engineering analysis, procedures development and crew familiarization/training at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). Enhancements to these dynamics algorithms are now being driven by a new set of Constellation program requirements for flexible multibody spacecraft simulation. One particular issue that has been discussed within the NASA community is the assumption of cantilever-type flexible body boundary conditions. This assumption has been commonly utilized within manipulator multibody dynamics formulations as it simplifies the computation of relative motion for articulated flexible topologies. Moreover, its use for modeling of space-based manipulators such as the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) and Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) has been extensively validated against flight data. For more general flexible spacecraft applications, however, the assumption of cantilever-type boundary conditions may not be sufficient. This paper describes the boundary condition assumptions that were used in the original formulation, demonstrates that these equations can be augmented to accommodate systems in which the assumption of cantilever boundary conditions no longer applies, and verifies the approach through comparison with an independent model previously validated against experimental hardware test data from a spacecraft flexible dynamics emulator.

Author(s):  
An Huynh ◽  
Thomas A. Brain ◽  
John R. MacLean ◽  
Leslie J. Quiocho

During the course of transition from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs to the Orion and Journey to Mars exploration programs, a generic flexible multibody dynamics formulation and associated software implementation has evolved to meet an ever changing set of requirements at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). Challenging problems related to large transitional topologies and robotic free-flyer vehicle capture/release, contact dynamics, and exploration missions concept evaluation through simulation (e.g., asteroid surface operations) have driven this continued development. Coupled with this need is the requirement to oftentimes support human spaceflight operations in real-time. Moreover, it has been desirable to allow even more rapid prototyping of on-orbit manipulator and spacecraft systems, to support less complex infrastructure software for massively integrated simulations, to yield further computational efficiencies, and to take advantage of recent advances and availability of multi-core computing platforms. Since engineering analysis, procedures development, and crew familiarity/training for human spaceflight are fundamental to JSC’s charter, there is also a strong desire to share and reuse models in both the non-real-time and real-time domains, with the goal of retaining as much multibody dynamics fidelity as possible. Three specific enhancements are reviewed here: (1) linked list organization to address large transitional topologies, (2) body level model order reduction, and (3) parallel formulation/implementation. This paper provides a detailed overview of these primary updates to JSC’s flexible multibody dynamics algorithms as well as a comparison of numerical results to previous formulations and associated software.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Aldo Costabile ◽  
Maria Italia Gualtieri ◽  
Anna Napoli

AbstractGeneral nonlinear high odd-order differential equations with Lidstone–Euler boundary conditions of second type are treated both theoretically and computationally. First, the associated interpolation problem is considered. Then, a theorem of existence and uniqueness of the solution to the Lidstone–Euler second-type boundary value problem is given. Finally, for a numerical solution, two different approaches are illustrated and some numerical examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the proposed algorithms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1373-1413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaiqian You ◽  
XinYang Lu ◽  
Nathaniel Task ◽  
Yue Yu

In this paper we consider 2D nonlocal diffusion models with a finite nonlocal horizon parameter δ characterizing the range of nonlocal interactions, and consider the treatment of Neumann-like boundary conditions that have proven challenging for discretizations of nonlocal models. We propose a new generalization of classical local Neumann conditions by converting the local flux to a correction term in the nonlocal model, which provides an estimate for the nonlocal interactions of each point with points outside the domain. While existing 2D nonlocal flux boundary conditions have been shown to exhibit at most first order convergence to the local counter part as δ → 0, the proposed Neumann-type boundary formulation recovers the local case as O(δ2) in the L∞ (Ω) norm, which is optimal considering the O(δ2) convergence of the nonlocal equation to its local limit away from the boundary. We analyze the application of this new boundary treatment to the nonlocal diffusion problem, and present conditions under which the solution of the nonlocal boundary value problem converges to the solution of the corresponding local Neumann problem as the horizon is reduced. To demonstrate the applicability of this nonlocal flux boundary condition to more complicated scenarios, we extend the approach to less regular domains, numerically verifying that we preserve second-order convergence for non-convex domains with corners. Based on the new formulation for nonlocal boundary condition, we develop an asymptotically compatible meshfree discretization, obtaining a solution to the nonlocal diffusion equation with mixed boundary conditions that converges with O(δ2) convergence.


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