Energy Conserving Time Integration for Multibody Dynamics. Application to Top Motion

Abstract

The paper describes a second-order accurate energy conserving method to numerically timeintegrate the constrained equations of motion of multibody dynamics. The aspects of finite rotation incrementation, energy conservation in presence of algebraic constraints and numerical implementation are examined in detail. The application is made to the classical problem of a spinning
symmetrical top in a gravity field to assess the numerical properties of the method.