I have a linkage mechanism in gazebo for which the contactmaxcorrecting_vel parameter under ODE determines if the total energy of the mechanism decays with time i.e. if no other forces are applied, and friction parameters are zero, the mechanism should technically stay in perpetual motion. But it only does so when I set this parameter to -1. The description in the sdf spec doesn't give much explanation:

"The maximum correcting velocities allowed when resolving contacts."

Neither does the ODE spec: "Set and get the maximum correcting velocity that contacts are allowed to generate. The default value is infinity (i.e. no limit). Reducing this value can help prevent "popping" of deeply embedded objects."

Can anyone explain to me this parameter and its use ? Thanks in advance.