| This thesis is devoted to the development and application of new software for use in the analysis of dynamic mechanical systems. This general purpose software can be employed to design and analyze a wide variety of two dimensional multibody systems. Since the design process is highly interactive, a graphical user interface is incorporated to allow effective and efficient operation of the software. System modelling is simplified through the use of prototypes of commonly adopted components, constraints and force elements. In the current development, unique components can be modelled through explicit specification of their parameters and new prototypes can be implemented for other needed elements.;Analysis capabilities include static, kinematic and dynamic analyses of systems through a series of user defined time steps. The post-processor presents the results through animation of the time variation of the model, freeze-frame displays, time history plots and formatted report generation.;The investigation was further extended to integrate the current software with finite element analysis software for strength and deformation analysis of the critical components.;In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the software and its relevance to engineering applications, an aircraft landing gear was modelled and analyzed. |
