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A benchmarking system for MBS simulation software: Problem standardization and performance measurement

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Abstract

Despite the importance given to the computational efficiency of multibody system (MBS) simulation tools, there is a lack of standard benchmarks to measure the performance of these kinds of software applications. Benchmarking is done on an individual basis: different sets of problems are used, and the procedures and conditions considered to measure computational efficiency are also different. In this scenario, it becomes almost impossible to compare the performance of the different available simulation methods in an objective and quantitative way.

This work proposes a benchmarking system for MBS simulation tools. The structure of the benchmark problem collection is defined, and a group of five problems involving rigid bodies is proposed. For these problems, documentation and validated reference solutions in standard formats have been generated, and a procedure to measure the computational efficiency of a given simulation software is described.

Finally, the benchmarking system has been applied to evaluate the performance of two different simulation tools: ADAMS/Solver, a popular general-purpose commercial MBS simulation tool, and a custom Fortran code implementation of an Index-3 augmented Lagrangian formulation with projections combined with the implicit single-step trapezoidal rule as integration scheme. Results show that the proposed problems are able to reach the limits of the tested simulation methods, and therefore they can be considered good benchmark problems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Politécnica Superior, University of La Coruña, Mendizábal s/n, 15403, Ferrol, Spain

    M. González, D. Dopico, U. Lugrís & J. Cuadrado

Authors
  1. M. González
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  2. D. Dopico
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  3. U. Lugrís
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  4. J. Cuadrado
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Correspondence to M. González.

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González, M., Dopico, D., Lugrís, U. et al. A benchmarking system for MBS simulation software: Problem standardization and performance measurement. Multibody Syst Dyn 16, 179–190 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-006-9020-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11044-006-9020-8

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