Generalized classical Ritz method for modeling geometrically nonlinear flexible multibody systems having a general topology

Abstract In the field of structural dynamics, the classical Ritz method is famous for its computational efficiency and employed for modeling numerous types of structures. However, applications of the method have been limited to structures having simple configuration since the method specializes in modeling simple structures that consist of a single or a few structural elements. To overcome the limitation of the method, we developed a generalized version of the method to conduct geometrically nonlinear analyses of flexible multibody systems having a general topology. To examine the accuracy, efficiency, and stability of the proposed method, we solved five numerical examples and compared the results obtained with the proposed method with those obtained with the finite element method. The comparison study illustrated the better performance of the proposed method in computational efficiency and numerical stability.