Modeling contact/impact of flexible manipulators with a fixed rigid surface

Abstract

A new technique for modeling contact/impact of flexible manipulators with a fixed rigid surface is presented. The manipulator is discretized using the finite element method. The technique is based on the use of the conservation of energy and momentum principles as a local velocity constraint on the nodes in contact with the rigid surface to obtain the post-impact velocities of those nodes. Two friction parameters one for the tangential momentum and one for energy can be used. A slight variation of the technique is to use the momentum conservation principle along with Newton's collision rule as the velocity constraint also with two friction parameters one for the tangential momentum and the coefficient of restitution. Momentum conservation/Newton collision rule constraint and momentum/energy conservation constraint are equivalent if friction effects are neglected. Numerical examples are solved to show the accuracy and versatility of the new technique.