• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.37 no.10
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• pp.1261-1267
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• 2013

In multibody mechanical systems, low-degree-of-freedom (DOF) joints such as revolute and translational joints are much more frequently used than high-DOF joints. In order to formulate kinematic constraint equations, especially for low-DOF joints, in an efficient and systematic manner, this paper presents a parametric generalized coordinate formulation as a new approach for describing constraint equations. In the proposed approach, joint constraint equations are formulated in terms of a mixed set of Cartesian and parametric generalized coordinates, which drastically reduces the complexity and computational cost of the partial derivatives of the constraints such as the constraint Jacobian. The proposed formulation is validated using a simple cylinder-crank system with an implicit integrator.