Journal of
Computational
and Nonlinear
Dynamics
Book Review
Matrix Methods in the Design Analysis of Mechanisms
and Multibody Systems, by J. J. Uicker, B. Ravani, and
P. N. Sheth, Cambridge University Press, 2013.
REVIEWED BY AHMED SHABANA, Department of
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois
at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607Chicago, 2015
This book is focused on presenting detailed formulations for
the kinematic and dynamic modeling of mechanism and
multibody systems (MBS). It is written by three well-known and
recognized authors who made significant contributions to the
development of mechanism and MBS approaches. The authors are
also credited for the development of one of the earliest mechanism
and MBS computer programs IMP (integrated mechanisms pro-
grams). The book is unique, particularly in the MBS literature
because it provides an integrated approach for modeling mecha-
nisms and MBS, it emphasizes the importance of accurate kine-
matic description in the MBS analysis, and it provides historic
notes on some of the approaches that impacted the way MBS
applications are currently modeled.
The book consists of 17 chapters which cover many of the
important aspects of mechanism and MBS formulations and
approaches. The book starts with the Song of the Screw which was
published anonymously in Nature in 1877. The preface of the
book also includes interesting quotations from the writings of
Franz Reuleaux (18291905). The first chapter of the book is an
introduction which is focused on concepts and definitions that are
fundamental to mechanisms and MBS analysis including the defi-
nition of mechanical bodies and lower and higher pairs. The topol-
ogy and kinematic architecture including incidence matrices and
kinematic loops are covered in Chap. 2. Chapter 3 is focused on
the transformation matrices and their important role in accurate
kinematic definitions. Different forms of the transformation matri-
ces are presented in this chapter. The use of the transformation
matrices in the description of the kinematics of systems that
include mechanical joints is explained in Chap. 4. Chapter 5
describes how successive transformations can be handled and
introduces the well-known DenavitHartenberg Transformation
and its use in the definition of the absolute position equations. The
loop closure equations which are required in the kinematic
Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics
Copyright V
C 2015 by ASME
Downloaded From: http://computationalnonlinear.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ on 01/22/2016 Terms of Use: http://www.asme.org/about-asme/terms-of-use
description of closed-loop chains are presented in this chapter
which also presents closed-form solution of kinematic equations
of joint-variable position. Chapter 6 presents the differential kine-
matics and demonstrates its use in different joint formulations.
Differential kinematics is particularly important when considering
the numerical solution and the development of general mechanism
and MBS algorithms. Chapters 7 and 8 describe, respectively, the
velocity and acceleration equations and explain how these equa-
tions can be written in terms of the joint coordinates. Chapter 9
presents some of the important force elements used in modeling
mechanism and MBS applications. It is appropriate to present the
joint kinematics and the formulation of the forces before present-
ing the dynamic equations of motion in Chap. 10. The formulation
of these dynamic equations requires the use of the joint kinematics
and the force expressions. Chapter 11 describes how the linearized
equations of motion can be obtained, while Chap. 12 discusses the
equilibrium posture analysis with explanation of stable and unsta-
ble equilibrium. The system frequency and time responses are dis-
cussed in Chaps. 13 and 14, respectively. Procedures for collision
detection and impact analysis are presented in Chaps. 15 and 16,
respectively, while the analysis of constraint forces is presented in
Chap. 17.
Each chapter of the book is followed by a list of references and a
problem set which make the book suitable for use as a textbook at
the senior undergraduate and first-year graduate level. The book is
well written and it is a good addition to the MBS literature in partic-
ular because it emphasizes the importance of the use of accurate ki-
nematics in the formulation of the MBS dynamic equations. The
book also describes, in Chap. 6, the roots of the use of numerical
techniques as the basis for identifying the independent variables in
the generalized coordinate partitioning which was later generalized
by Roger Wehage in his Ph.D. thesis. I find the discussion on the
use of the numerical approach to iteratively solve the loop closure
equations expressed in terms of the joint variables interesting. Weh-
age generalized this approach to the general case of absolute Carte-
sian coordinates and employed sparse matrix techniques to solve
the kinematic equations for both open- and closed-loop systems. I
highly recommend this book for readers who are interested in the
MBS mechanics. The authors are to be congratulated for writing
such a book which covers many topics that are not covered by other
existing books on the MBS dynamics.
NOVEMBER 2015, Vol. 10 / 066501-1