Kinematic analysis of the windshield wiper mechanism with two parallel rocker blades

Abstract

The paper deals with a windshield wiper mechanism with two parallel rocker blades having a complex topological structure. In the first part of the paper, the mobility of the mechanism is analyzed by means of the simplest formula for planar linkages. Also, the topological structure consisting of adyad and a tetrad has been outlined. In the second part of the paper, a kinema-tic analysis of the multi-contour mechanism is performed, the angular displacements of the two rocker blades being obtained. In this regard the independent contour method has been used, the angular displacements of all kinematicelements of the mechanism being calculated. Moreover, the displacement systems have been derived in order to obtain the velocities and late-on the accelerations of the mechanism elements. Finally, the paper ends with the displaying of the kinematic charts of the mechanism elements of which those with themovement of the two parallel rocker blades are the most wanted. This is due to the requirement of maximization of the wiping surface which is a very important safety issue.