Sigrid Leyendecker

• The primary object of this work is the development of a robust, accurate and efficient time integrator for the dynamics of flexible multibody systems. Particularly a unified framework for the computational dynamics of multibody systems consisting of mass points, rigid bodies and flexible beams forming open kinematic chains or closed loop systems is developed. In addition, it aims at the presentation of (i) a focused survey of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism for dynamics, (ii) five different methods to enforce constraints with their respective relations, and (iii) three alternative ways for the temporal discretisation of the evolution equations. The relations between the different methods for the constraint enforcement in conjunction with one specific energy-momentum conserving temporal discretisation method are proved and their numerical performances are compared by means of theoretical considerations as well as with the help of numerical examples.