ABSTRACT
The co-rotational FEM proposed by the authors is supposed to combine the advantages of both approaches. The general idea behind the formulation arises from the principles of incorporating flexible bodies in Multi-Body-System (MBS) dynamics. To achieve high computational efficiency, the overall motion of a flexible body in an MBS program is decomposed into large rigid-body motion and a small deformation described with respect to the body-fixed reference frame. This local reference frame is actually attached to the body and performs the same rigid-body motion as the body itself.
