A Numerical Algorithm for Solving Stiff ODEs and DAEs in Multibody Mechanics

Presented is an algorithm suitable for numerical solutions of multibody mechanics problems. When s-stage fully implicit Runge-Kutta (RK) method is used to solve these problems described by a system of n ordinary differential equations (ODE), solution of the resulting algebraic system requires 2s3 n3 / 3 operations. In this paper we present an efficient algorithm, whose formulation differs from the traditional RK method. The procedure for uncoupling the algebraic system into a block-diagonal matrix with s blocks of size n is derived for any s. In terms of number of multiplications, the algorithm is about s2 / 2 times faster than the original, nondiagonalized system, as well as s2 times in terms of number of additions/multiplications. With s = 3 the method has the same precision and stability property as the well-known RADAU5 algorithm. However, our method is applicable with any s and not only to the explicit ODEs My′ = f(x, y), where M = constant matrix, but also to the general implicit ODEs of the form f (x, y, y′) = 0. In the solution procedure y is assumed to have a form of the algebraic polynomial whose coefficients are found by using the collocation technique. A proper choice of locations of collocation points guarantees good precision/stability properties. If constructed such as to be L-stable, the method may be used for solving differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). The application is illustrated by a constrained planar manipulator problem.