Absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) is a nonincremental nonlinear finite element procedure that has been successfully applied to the large deformation analysis of multibody systems for more than two decades. Although a comprehensive review on ANCF was conducted by Gerstmayr et al. (2013, “Review on the Absolute Nodal Coordinate Formulation for Large Deformation Analysis of Multibody Systems,” J. Comput. Nonlinear Dyn., 8(3), p. 031016), significant theoretical developments have been made since then at a much faster pace to improve the element accuracy and computational efficiency. In order to overview recent advances in ANCF simulation capabilities that are not covered in the first review paper, this paper aims to conduct a comprehensive review of 259 papers concerning ANCF published from 2012 to 2020. It is shown that the ANCF element library has grown substantially for beam, plate/shell, solid elements, eliminating drawbacks of ANCF elements developed earlier. The application areas have extended, especially in the aerospace field, and the enhanced ANCF simulation capabilities have been demonstrated in solving challenging engineering problems. Research efforts have been made continually to integrate computer-aided design (CAD) and analysis with ANCF elements. Furthermore, computational improvements and multiphysics simulations have become major research topics for ANCF. It is also demonstrated that the accurate ANCF geometry description can be exploited to facilitate structural optimization of multibody systems.

In this paper, a deployment simulation model for next-generation aerospace structures, such as satellite solar panels and deployable wing aircraft, is proposed. The model utilizes finite plate elements based on absolute nodal coordinate formulation that has many advantages, namely, a constant mass matrix, zero Coriolis and centrifugal forces, a simple description of constraint conditions, and applicability of large elastic deformation. However, two problems have prevented the plate element from being utilized for simulation. The first problem is the absence of the deployment system model composed of the actuator torque considering compound rotation angles, holding/releasing, and latching mechanisms in the plate element. A deployment system model that addresses this need is therefore proposed. The second problem is a long calculation time, which is highly undesirable because many parametric simulations are necessary for the deployment system design. The long calculation time is due to the strong nonlinearity of the plate element and many joint constraint conditions. To solve this problem, this paper introduces the mitigation of the nonlinearity, component mode synthesis, and velocity transformation into the plate element. The proposed model succeeds in simulating the deployment of the solar panel and deployable wing aircraft with a significant reduction of the calculation time.