DAEs and PDEs in elastic multibody systems

Elastic multibody systems arise in the simulation of vehicles, robots, air- and spacecrafts. They feature a mixed structure with differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) governing the gross motion and partial differential equations (PDEs) describing the elastic deformation of particular bodies. We introduce a general modelling framework for this new application field and discuss numerical simulation techniques from several points of view. Due to different time scales, singular perturbation theory and model reduction play an important role. A slider crank mechanism with a 2D FE grid for the elastic connecting rod illustrates the techniques. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.