On steady motions of a rigid body bearing three-degree-of-freedom control momentum gyroscopes and their stability

Equations of motion are obtained for a rigid body bearing N three-degree-of-freedom control momentum gyroscopes in gimbals and the entire set of steady motions in a homogeneous external field is determined. The steady motion dependence on the magnitude of the system angular momentum is studied and a detailed analysis of the secular stability is performed.     

On steady rotations of a rigid body bearing a single-axis powered gyroscope whose precession axis is parallel to a principal plane of inertia

The set of steady motions of the system named in the title is represented parametrically via the gyro gimbal rotation angle for an arbitrary position of the gimbal axis.We study the set of steady motions for a system in which the gyro gimbal axis is parallel to a principal plane of inertia as well as for a system with a dynamic symmetry. We determine all motions satisfying sufficient stability conditions. In the presence of dissipation in the gimbal axis, we use the Barbashin-Krasovskii theorem to identify each steady motion as either conditionally asymptotically stable or unstable.     

Stability analysis of steady rotations of a rigid body bearing two-degree-of-freedom control moment gyros with dissipation in gimbal suspension axes

To study the stability of steady rotations of a control moment gyro system with internal dissipation, we use the Barbashin-Krasovskii theorem and the relation, established in [1], between the Lyapunov function and steady motions. Taking into account the special properties of the original problem, we reduce it to a lower-dimensional problem.We give a detailed presentation of an algorithm for analyzing the stability of steady motions of a gyrostat and use this algorithm to perform a complete study for two systems consisting, respectively, of one and two gyros whose gimbal axes are parallel to the principal axis of inertia of the system. Each steady motion is identified as either asymptotically stable or unstable. We find periodic motions that exist only in the presence of dynamic symmetry and which are regular precessions. For the system with two gyros, we prove the asymptotic stability of quiescent states and prove that in the angular momentum range where these states are defined the system does not have any other stable motions.     

Elastic state of a transversely isotropic piezoelectric body with an arbitrarily oriented elliptic crack

The elastic stress state in a piezoelectric body with an arbitrarily oriented elliptic crack under mechanical and electric loads is analyzed. The solution is obtained using triple Fourier transform and the Fourier-transformed Green’s function for an unbounded piezoelastic body. Solving the problem for the case of a crack lying in the isotropy plane, for which there is an exact solution, demonstrates that the approach is highly efficient. The distribution of the stress intensity factors along the front of a crack in a piezoelectric body under uniform mechanical loading is analyzed numerically for different orientations of the crack __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 39–48, February 2008.     

Stability problem for pendulum-type motions of a rigid body in the Goryachev-Chaplygin case

We consider the motion of a rigid body with a single fixed point in a homogeneous gravity field. The body mass geometry and the initial conditions for its motion correspond to the case of Goryachev—Chaplygin integrability. We study the orbital stability problem for periodic motions corresponding to vibrations and rotations of the rigid body rotating about the equatorial axis of the inertia ellipsoid.In [1], it was proved that these periodic motions are orbitally unstable in the linear approximation. It was also shown that, to solve the stability problem in the nonlinear setting, it does not suffice to analyze terms up to the fourth order in the expansion of the Hamiltonian function in the canonical variables.The present paper shows that in this problem one deals with a special case where standard methods for stability analysis based on the coefficients in the normal form of the Hamiltonian of the perturbed equations of motion do not apply. We use Chetaev’s theorem to prove the orbital instability of these periodic motions in the rigorous nonlinear statement of the problem. The proof uses the additional first integral of the Goryachev—Chaplygin problem in an essential way.     

Stabilization of the uniform rotations of a rigid body around a principal axis

Conclusion We sum up the results regarding the stabilization of the investigated motion. The system (1.2) is stabilizable in the linear approximation if the conditions (2.2) on the parameter are not satisfied, and also in the case 4 if a₂₂₃₀>0. The system (1.2) is stabilizable in the nonlinear approximation for ₀=0, ₁0. The system (1.2) is nonstabilizable in the case 4 if a₂₂₃₀<0. In the remaining cases the investigated motion is nonasymptotically stable.Comparing the results regarding stabilizability and controllability, we note that the relation between these properties is, possibly, more complex than for linear systems, since in the cases 2, 3, in which the necessary conditions for the nonlinear system (1.2) are satisfied, while the sufficient ones are not, we do have a nonasymptotic stability. The further investigation of these cases requires the determination of more general sufficient, possibly necessary and sufficient, conditions of controllability of nonlinear systems; this seems to be possible in any case for systems that are linear with respect to control.In conclusion we note that the critical cases of stabilization as well as the problem of the control of the motion of a rigid body by a reactive force have been investigated long ago (we mention [2, 5]) and, as shown by this paper, they have not been definitively solved and continue to present interest for both theory and practice.Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev. University of Science, Sebha, Libya. Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 28, No. 9, pp. 73–79, September, 1992.     

Stability of high-frequency periodic motions of a heavy rigid body with a horizontally vibrating suspension point

The motion of a heavy rigid body one of whose points (the suspension point) executes horizontal harmonic high-frequency vibrations with small amplitude is considered. The problem of existence of high-frequency periodic motions with period equal to the period of the suspension point vibrations is considered. The stability conditions for the revealed motions are obtained in the linear approximation. The following three special cases of mass distribution in the body are considered; a body whose center of mass lies on the principal axis of inertia, a body whose center of mass lies in the principal plane of inertia, and a dynamically symmetric body.     

Attitude stabilization of the rotational axis of a carrying body by pendulum dampers

The paper addresses attitude stabilization of the rotational axis of an asymmetric carrying body by pendulum dampers. Steady motions in which the kinetic energy of the system takes stationary values are identified. Whether these motions are stable is established __________ Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 120–128, October 2007.     

Construction of optimal laws of variation of the angular momentum vector of a rigid body

We consider the problem of constructing optimal preset laws of variation of the angular momentum vector of a rigid body taking the body from an arbitrary initial angular position to the required terminal angular position in a given time. We minimize an integral quadratic performance functional whose integrand is a weighted sum of squared projections of the angular momentum vector of the rigid body. We use the Pontryagin maximum principle to derive necessary optimality conditions. In the case of a spherically symmetric rigid body, the problem has a well-known analytic solution. In the case where the body has a dynamic symmetry axis, the obtained boundary value optimization problem is reduced to a system of two nonlinear algebraic equations. For a rigid body with an arbitrarymass distribution, optimal control laws are obtained in the form of elliptic functions. We discuss the laws of controlled motion and applications of the constructed preset laws in systems of attitude control by external control torques or rotating flywheels.     

Steady-state rotational motions of a rigid body with a strong magnet in an alternating magnetic field in the presence of dissipation

We consider steady-state rotational motions of a satellite, i.e., a rigid body with a passive magnetic attitude control system consisting of a strong constant magnet and a set of magnetic hysteresis rods. We use asymptotic methods to show that in the absence of dissipation there exists a one-parameter family of steady-state rotations of the rigid body with the strong magnet and that this one-parameter family passes into an isolated solution if a model dissipation is introduced. The motion thus obtained was discovered when processing the telemetry data from the first Russian nano-satellite TNS-0 launched in 2005.     

On periodic motions of an orbital dumbbell-shaped body with a cabin-elevator

The motion of a dumbbell-shaped body (a pair of massive points connected with each other by a weightless rod along which the elevator, i.e., a third point, is moving according to a given law) in an attractive Newtonian central field is considered. In particular, such a mechanical system can be considered as a simplified model of an orbital cable system equipped with an elevator. The practically most interesting case where the cabin performs periodic ??shuttle??motions is studied. Under the assumption that the elevator mass is small compared with the dumbbell mass, the Poincaré theory is used to determine the conditions for the existence of families of system periodic motions analytically depending on the arising small parameter and passing into some stable radial steady-state motion of the unperturbed problem as the small parameter tends to zero. It is also proved that, for sufficiently small parameter values, each of the radial relative equilibria generates exactly one family of such periodic motions. The stability of the obtained periodic solutions is studied in the linear approximation, and these solutions themselves are calculated up to terms of the firstorder in the small parameter. The contemporary studies of the motion of orbital dumbbell systems apparently originated in Okunev??s papers [1, 2]. These studies were continued in [3], where plane motions of an orbit tether (represented as a dumbbell-shaped satellite) in a circular orbit were considered in the satellite approximation. In [4], in the case of equal masses and in the unbounded statement, the energy-momentum method was used to perform the dynamic reduction of the problem and analyze the stability of relative equilibria. A similar technique was used in [5], where, in contrast to the above-mentioned problems, the massive points were connected by an elastic spring resisting to compression and forming a dumbbell with elastic properties. Under such assumptions, the stability of radial configurations was investigated in that paper. The bifurcations and stability of steady-state configurations of a deformable elastic dumbbell were also studied in [6]. Various obstacles arising in the construction of orbital cable systems, in particular, the strong deformability of known materials, were discussed in [7]. In [8], the problem of orbital motion of a pair of massive points connected by an inextensible weightless cable was considered in the exact statement. In other words, it was assumed that a unilateral constraint is imposed on themassive points. The conditions of stability of vertical positions of the relative equilibria of the cable system, which were obtained in [8], can be used for any ratio of the subsatellite and station masses. In turn, these results agree well with the results obtained earlier in the studies of stability of vertical configurations in the case of equal masses of the system end bodies [3, 4]. One of the basic papers in the dynamics of three-body orbital cable systems is the paper [9]. The steady-state motions and their bifurcations and stability were studied depending on the elevator cabin position in [10].     

Construction of optimal laws of variation in the angular momentum vector of a dynamically symmetric rigid body

We consider the problem of construction of optimal laws of variation in the angular momentum vector of a dynamically symmetric rigid body so as to ensure the transition of the rigid body from an arbitrary initial angular position to the required final angular position. For the functionals to be minimized, we use combined performance functionals, one of which characterizes the expenditure of time and of the squared modulus of the angular momentum vector in a given proportion, while the other characterizes the expenditure of time and momentum of the modulus of the angular momentum vector necessary to change the rigid body orientation. The control (the vector of the rigid body angular momentum) is assumed to be bounded in the modulus. The problem is solved by using Pontryagin’s maximum principle and the quaternion differential equation [1, 2] relating the vector of the dynamically symmetric rigid body angular momentum to the quaternion of orientation of the coordinate system rotating with respect to the rigid body about its dynamical symmetry axis at an angular velocity proportional to the angular momentum vector projection on the axis. The use of such a model of rotational motion leads to the problem of optimal control with the moving right end of the trajectory and significantly simplifies the analytic study of the problem of construction of optimal laws of variation in the angular momentum vector, because this model explicitly exploits the body angular momentum quaternion (control) instead of the rigid body absolute angular velocity quaternion. We construct general analytic solutions of the differential equations for the boundary-value problems which form systems of nine nonlinear differential equations. It is shown that the process of solving the differential boundary-value problems is reduced to solving two scalar algebraic transcendental equations.     

Analytical solution of the optimal attitude maneuver problem with a combined objective functional for a rigid body in the class of conical motions

The optimal attitude maneuver control problem without control constraints is studied in the quaternion statement for a rigid body with a spherical mass distribution. The performance criterion is given by a functional combining the time and energy used for the attitude maneuver. A new analytical solution in the class of conical motions is obtained for this problem on the basis of the Pontryagin maximum principle.     

On two classes of precession motions of a gyrostat under the action of potential and gyroscopic forces

We find two new classes of precession motions of a gyrostat with fixed point. The motions are described by the Kirchhoff differential equations. For the first class, the velocities of precession and free rotation are equal and given in the form of a trigonometric polynomial of the first degree in the angle of free rotation. For the second class, the precession and rotation velocities do not coincide and are defined by special functions of the angle of free rotation. These classes are described in terms of new solutions of the Kirchhoff equations.     

On the motion of a heavy dynamically symmetric rigid body with vibrating suspension point

The motion of a dynamically symmetric rigid body in a homogeneous field of gravity is studied. One point lying on the symmetry axis of the body (the suspension point) performs high-frequency periodic or conditionally periodic vibrations of small amplitude. In the framework of approximate equations of motion obtained earlier, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of the body rotation about the vertical symmetry axis and study the existence and stability of regular precessions of the body in the coordinate system translationally moving together with the suspension point.     

Solution of the optimal turn problem for a spherically symmetric rigid body with arbitrary boundary conditions in the class of generalized conical motions

We consider the problem of time- and energy consumption-optimal turn of a rigid body with spherical mass distribution under arbitrary boundary conditions on the angular position and angular velocity of the rigid body. The optimal turn problem is modified in the class of generalized conical motions, which allows one to obtain closed-form solutions for equations of motion with arbitrary constants. Thus, solving the optimal control boundary value problem is reduced to solving a system of nonlinear algebraic equations for the constants. Numerical examples are considered to illustrate the proximity between the solutions of the traditional and modified problems of optimal turn of a rigid body.