Recent developments in optimization of flexible components of multi- body systems

Recently mechanical engineering has extended from a component to a system oriented approach. The structural analysis of components is now completed by the whole mechanical system simulation using multibody system analysis. This evolution aims at capturing better the real loading conditions account-ing for the component interaction and couplings in the system. Structural optimization is continuing along the same tracks. Recent works in structural optimization have tried to optimize components with respect to loadings conditions defined through dynamic loading coming from multibody system dynamic analysis [1, 2, 3] Generally, optimization techniques consider that the structural component is isolated from the rest of the mechanism and use simplified quasi-static load cases to mimic the complex loadings in service. In contrast, we have shown in previous works devoted to topology optimization [3] that an optimization directly based on the dynamic response of the flexible multibody system leads to a more integrated approach. In order to overcome the limitations of some previous approaches [1, 2], a more integrated optimiza-tion technique is proposed here, based on the nonlinear finite element approach for flexible multibody systems described in [4]. The non linear finite element formalism accounts for both large rigid-bod