Simulation of Multibody Systems by a Parallel Extrapolation Method

In the simulation of multibody systems, the equations of motion are generated by so-called multibody formalisms as a system of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). A recently developed extrapolation method for integrating the equations of motion is investigated. Extrapolation methods for ordinary differential equations are briefly reviewed, before proceeding to the DAE method. The inherent parallelism of the extrapolation scheme is used for an implementation on a transputer network. Implementation aspects such as the distribution of work during integration, and differences in stepsize control of serial and parallel algorithms are discussed. The efficiency of the parallel algorithm is demonstrated for a multibody system that is part of a mechanical printing device.