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Subtleties of nonholonomic constraints

The treatment of nonholonomic constraints in Lagrangian dynamics requires caution, since procedures valid for holonomic constraints do not always apply to nonholonomic constraints. We make a didactic review of the main properties of nonholonomic constraints, with emphasis on certain subtleties seldom or never discussed in texbooks on analytical mechanics. We also call attention to the little known Voronec equations, which avoid Lagrange multipliers.


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