abriefsynopsisofkane’smethodandafewapplications.doc

A Brief Synopsis of Kane’s Method This paper is the result of my interest in multi-body dynamics and desire to increase my knowledge on the topic. My initial intentions were to teach myself Kane’s method (originally called Lagrange form of d’Alembert’s principle) for developing dynamical equations of motion and then prepare a lecture for class. As I started learning and applying the technique I realized that a small lecture would not be sufficient to teach the method and have time to get to some of the more interesting applications. In this paper I present a proof of Kane’s Method using the Principle of Virtual Work, a general procedure for developing equations of motion, and a few applications. Essentially all methods for obtaining equations of motion are equivalent. However, the ease of use of the various methods differs; some are more suited for multibody dynamics than others. The Newton-Euler method is comprehensive in that a complete solution for all the forces and kinematic variables are obtained, but it is inefficient. Applying the Newton-Euler method requires that force and moment balances be applied for each body taking in consideration every interactive and constraint force. Therefore, the method is inefficient when only a few of the system’s forces need to be solved for. Lagrange’s Equations provides a method for disregarding all interactive and constraint forces that do not perform work. The major disadvantage of this method is the need to differentiate scalar energy functions (kinetic and potential energy). This is not much of a problem for small multibody systems, but becomes an efficiency problem for large multibody systems. Kane’s method offers the advantages of both the Newton-Euler and Lagrange methods without the disadvantages. With the use of generalized forces the need for examining interactive and constraint forces between bodies is eliminated. Since Kane’s method does not employ the use of energy functions, differentiating i