  A new formulation for the modular construction of flexible multibody systems
is presented. By rearranging the equations for a flexible floating body and
introducing the appropriate canonical momenta, the model is recast into a
coupled system of ordinary and partial differential equations in
port-Hamiltonian (pH) form. This approach relies on a floating frame
description and remains valid under the assumption of small deformations. This
allows including mechanical models that cannot be easily formulated in terms of
differential forms. Once a pH model is established, a finite element based
method is then introduced to discretize the dynamics in a structure-preserving
manner. Thanks to the features of the pH framework, complex multibody systems
are constructed in a modular way. Constraints are imposed at the velocity
level, leading to an index 2 quasi-linear differential-algebraic system.
Numerical tests are carried out to assess the validity of the proposed
approach.
