TABLE OF CONTENTS This article describes a new collaborative simulation environment for multibody system analysis designed to streamline the development, testing and evaluation of new methods for multibody system simulation. The environment, called MbsLab, is made up of 3 components: (1) MbsML, a neutral and extensible XML-based language for describing multibody system models and related information, (2) MbsEngine, an open-source modular simulation tool that uses MbsML as native data format, and (3) MbsBenchmark, a benchmarking suite for multibody system analysis software. The three components can be used together to develop and compare the performance of new simulation methods in a short time. Currently, the environment only supports rigid bodies, but it is expected to grow to support flexible bodies, contact and impact.
Key words: multibody, dynamic simulation, XML, benchmark, software development.
Multibody system simulation is a complex process involving several factors: modeling, dynamic formulation and integration procedures. Cuadrado [6] concluded that the adequate combination of these factors depends heavily on the properties of the system to be analyzed, and therefore there is not a universal solution: different alternatives (modeling techniques, formulations and integration schemes) must be combined, evaluated and compared in order to find the optimal combination for a particular system. Commercial tools do not allow this level of flexibility, since they usually implement just one kind of dynamic formulation and a few integrators.
