The model of a 2D elastic beam (Figure 2) consists of three rigid elements (1), (2) and
(3) each with the mass m linked together with rotational joints in Pi and rotational spring and damper elements (stiffness c, damping d). The left end of the beam model
is excited kinematically in the vertical direction with a given function
u(t) = uo sin(ωt). The rotations of the elements are described by three angles ϕi, the length of each element is l, each with the center of gravity Si. A Newtonian frame I
is located at 0 and each beam element has a body fixed frame Ki. This model does not represent the real physics of an elastic beam,but it may be used as a simple approximation. An increase of the number of elements improves the quality of approximation to the real behavior. However in this simple form the model is sufficient to demonstrate a couple of typical tasks relevant to the operation with Multibody
problems. The following sections explain the derivation of the equations of
motion. Because of its compact theoretical formulation section 2.1 starts with the Lagrange equation of second kind, section 2.2 demonstrates the more relevant procedure with the Newton-Euler equations.