Modeling and simulation are prerequisite to analysis and design of engineering systems. Modern engineering systems often are multy disciplinary, i.e., may include blocks from different majors of engineering, such as electrical, mechanical, fluid, etc. Availability of a unified approach for system modeling will make it easy for engineers or researcher from a certain discipline to model the systems from other disciplines. For example, with availability of a unified modeling methodology an electrical engineer will be able to model a system composed of electrical, mechanical and fluid systems. Modeling of complex mechanical systems is not always easy for engineers from other disciplines. On the other hand, it is much easier to establish mathematical model of electric circuits. Furthermore, simulation software is much richer for electric circuits. Therefore, in this paper a methodology is proposed for unifying the modeling of electrical and complex mechanical systems by obtaining electric circuit model of complex mechanic systems. In developing the proposed methodology, analogy between the electrical and mechanical elements have been used as tools. Proposed methodology has been applied to modeling and simulation of a relatively complex mechanical system and benefits accrued from this approach has been discussed. It is further proposed that the approach presented in this paper can be easily extended to modeling of dynamic systems from other engineering disciplines.

To cope with the rapid development in technology, engineers are dealing with complex and heterogenous systems which composed of blocks that belong to different engineering fields such as electrical, mechanical, chemical, electromechanical, fluid, thermal etc. Mechanical and electrical systems are more often go hand to hand in many industrial systems. For system analyzing and designing purpose, engineers must model and simulate the systems to investigate problems and aim for the best performance before proceeding to the manufacturing stage. In the presence of complex mechanical system blocks, electrical and electronics engineers are often facing difficulties in modeling the mechanical blocks. Although similarity between individual mechanical and electrical elements is recognized since long time, but it has not drawn deserved attention for the use in the system level. In this paper, we investigate in great details how enabling electrical and electronics engineers to easily model and analyze complex mechanical and electromechanical systems through systematic approach. For this objective, thirteen rules are set, established, and elaborated on how to find the electrical circuit equivalent of a given mechanical or electromechanical system in order to be modelled and analyzed. The proposed approach is tested on both complex translational mechanical and electromechanical systems which includes a rotational mechanical system. Findings demonstrate that models generated by the equivalent of electric circuits are matching the models of existing mechanical and electromechanical system by 100%. The proposed systematic approach is promising and can be widely implemented in several industrial fields.INDEX TERMS Modeling and simulation; a set of rules; complex mechanical systems; electrical system; analogy.