A Simple Treatment of Constraint Forces and Constraint Moments in the Dynamics of Rigid Bodies

In this expository article, a simple concise treatment of Lagrange’s prescription for con-straint forces and constraint moments in the dynamics of rigid bodies is presented. The treatment is suited to both Newton–Euler and Lagrangian treatments of rigid body dynamics and is illuminated with a range of examples from classical mechanics and orthopedic biomechanics. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4028099