About the book

[moorepants]

Some possible goals

• after completing the book, you should be able to create a physics engine if you desired
• most lessons should be motivated by a real problem statement, instead of teaching the concepts with little connection to reality or strictly from a mathematical sense
• computational difficulties should not be hidden and should be taught
• don't just teach the math and expect the students to figure out the computation on their own, the computations should be first class and could even go as far as replacing the math as the teach mechanism
• prerequisites are multivariate calculus and college physics (could possibly not have a first year dynamics course as a prereq)
• the book is online and interactive (run/modify code, interact with figures)
• uses computational thinking to teach multibody dynamics
• allow collaborative contributions

Topics

• [x] vectors defined rotating reference frames
• [x] vector differentiation
• [x] kinematics
  • [x] angular velocity and acceleration
  • [x] linear velocity and acceleration
• [x] constraints (configuration and motion)
• [ ] joints
• [ ] forward & kinematics
• [ ] forward & inverse dynamics
• [x] mass, mass center, inertia
  • [x] principal moments of inertia
• [x] loads
  • [x] noncontributing
• [ ] formulating the equations of motion with different methods:
  • [ ] Newton-Euler
  • [ ] Lagrange
  • [x] Kane
  • [x] TMT
  • [ ] Devanit-Hartenburg
  • [ ] Hamilton
  • [ ] Jain
  • [ ] Featherstone
• [ ] Lagrange multipliers
• [ ] linearization (with & without constraints)
• [ ] pure numeric dynamics calculations
• [ ] spatial vectors
• [ ] screw theory
• [ ] O(n) algorithms
• [ ] symbolic, numeric, difference derivatives
• [x] simulation
• [x] visualization
• [ ] simulating stiff systems
• [ ] optimization
• [ ] optimal control
• [x] noncontributing loads
• [ ] Lagrange multipliers
• [x] Euler angles
• [ ] Euler parameters, Rodriguez parameters, quaternions

[moorepants]

The TU Delft Multibody class has 16 weeks of class time (20 weeks - 2 witte weeks - 2 exam weeks).

1. orientation, angular velocity, & angular acceleration
2. Euler angles & Quaternions
3. position, velocity, acceleration
4. holonomic constraints
5. nonholonomic constraints
6. mass, center of mass, inertia
7. forces and torques
8. impact
9. equations of motion - Newton-Euler & Lagrange
10. equations of motion - Kane & TMT
11. simulation
12. visualization
13. stiff systems
14. inverse dynamics
15. linearization

Appendices

1. Vector math
2. Integrating ODEs and DAEs

[moorepants]

Here was Arend's schedule from this year: He only has 12 lectures.

[moorepants]

Added the design goals to the readme and new content will be added per new issues.