The main objective of this work is to predict the effect of distributed viscoelastic damping on the dynamic response of multilink flexible robot manipulators. A general approach, based on the principle of virtual work, is presented for the modeling of flexible robot arms with distributed viscoelastic damping. The finite element equations are developed, and a recurrence formulation for numerical integration of these equations is obtained. It is demonstrated, by a numerical example, that the viscoelastic damping treatments have a significant effect on the dynamic response of flexible robot manipulators.

Issue Section:
Technical Briefs
Topics:
Damping, Dynamic analysis, Flexible manipulators, Dynamic response, Manipulators, Finite element analysis, Modeling, Robots, Virtual work principle
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