Convergence of a Time‐Stepping Scheme for Rigid‐Body Dynamics and Resolution of Painlevé's Problem

Abstract.

This paper gives convergence theory for a new implicit time‐stepping scheme for general rigid‐body dynamics with Coulomb friction and purely inelastic collisions and shocks. An important consequence of this work is the proof of existence of solutions of rigid‐body problems which include the famous counterexamples of Painlevé. The mathematical basis for this work is the formulation of the rigid‐body problem in terms of measure differential inclusions of Moreau and Monteiro Marques. The implicit time‐stepping method is based on complementarity problems, and is essentially a particular case of the algorithm described in Anitescu & Potra [2], which in turn is based on the formulation in Stewart & Trinkle [47].