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Increasing attention is paid to modeling flexibility of individual components in the multibody simulation of large-scale mechanical systems. Nevertheless, the high model order of common methods such as FEA restricts efficient explorations, especially in dynamic design and iterative optimization. In this paper, a rigid multibody modeling strategy (RMMS) with low DOFs and explicit physical meaning is proposed, which directly discretizes a continuous structure into a number of rigid finite elements (RFEs) connected by spring-damping elements (SDEs). In the RMMS, a new identification method from the perspective of the inverse vibration problem is particularly put forward to resolve the parameters of SDEs, which is crucial to the implementation of RMMS in complex flexible structures. With decoupling and linearization, this nonlinear problem is transformed into solving the incompatible linear equations in Rn2 vector space based on vectorization operator and Kronecker product, and optimal parameters are obtained by calculating the Moore–Penrose generalized inverse. Finally, the comparison of the experimental results with the simulated ones by the RMMS strongly validates the feasibility and correctness of the RMMS in predicting the dynamic behaviors while with few DOFs and explicit physical meaning; the application in a lithography system exhibits the applicability of the RMMS for dynamic modeling of large-scale mechanical systems.

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Expert insights into the time-domain dynamic behavior of heavy-duty gearboxes form the foundations of design evaluation and improvement. However, in the existing lateral–torsional coupling (LTC) modeling method for gearboxes that is normally used for frequency-domain dynamic behavior, the meshing forces are modeled as spring dampers with fixed acting points on the meshing gears to simulate only the transient LTC effect, and thus the steady state characteristic in the time domain cannot be obtained due to the unrealistic distortion of positions and orientations as the gear angles increase. In this paper, a novel and generally applicable LTC modeling method for heavy-duty gearboxes, mainly planetary gear sets with floating components, is proposed by using space-fixed spring dampers with floating acting points on the meshing gears to study the time-domain dynamic response and to support the dynamic design of heavy-duty gearboxes. Based on the proposed method, a LTC model of a 2 megawatt (MW) wind turbine gearbox with floating components considering the time-varying meshing stiffness, bearing stiffness, torsional stiffness, and floating effect was established. The simulated results of representative components were in accordance with experimental results on a test rig, and dynamic behavior was calculated.