A systematic synthesis of the layer arrangements of planar mechanisms.

Abstract

In designing planar mechanisms, individual moving links have to be arranged separately on parallel planes, which are called layers in the present paper, to avoid mutual interference during a cycle of motion, and, in addition, the mechanisms have to be constructed in the smallest space possible. In this paper about planar multilink mechanisms which are constructed with revolute pairs, a systematic synthesis of layer arrangement is discussed with consideration of the mutual interference of moving links. to determine the minimum number of layers required to construct crank mechanisms and profiles of links, relative loci of pairing points and positions of links in the mechanisms are analyzed. Moreover, conditions to avoid mutual interferences of moving links on the same layers are formulated, and a layer-arrangement system is obtained which determines the profiles and layer arrangements of links of planar multilink mechanisms.