Rigid-Body Dynamics at LAB3

Rigid-Body Dynamics

Rigid-body dynamics studies the movement of systems of interconnected bodies under the action of external forces. The assumption that the bodies are rigid simplifies the analysis by reducing the parameters that describe the configuration of the system to the translation and rotation of reference frames attached to each body.
The dynamics of a rigid body system is described by the laws of kinematics and by the application of Newton’s second law. The solution of the equations of motion provides a description of the position, the motion and the acceleration of the individual components of the system and overall the system itself, as a function of time.
Rigid-body dynamics allows the detailed study of mechanisms (gears, cams, kinematic chains) with the accurate calculation of driving and reaction forces, displacement and velocities of moving parts and dissipated energy due to friction.