Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Efficient Tether Dynamic Model Formulation Using Recursive Rigid-Body Dynamics, Brad Hembree, Nathan Slegers

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

A computationally efficient discrete model for low-strain tethers used in many engineering applications is developed without the use of elastic elements. The tether is modelled using N links, with each link treated as a body of revolution where it is assumed the tether spin is negligible to the dynamics, resulting in each link having only two degrees of freedom. A recursive algorithm is developed for the dynamic equations, with the solution procedure being an order N method requiring only a 2 x 2 matrix inversion, resulting in approximately half the computations of the general recursive algorithm. A comparison between the …