A general method for analysis of planar mechanisms using a modular approach

A method that covers both kinematic, inverse dynamic, dynamic, and static analysis of any type of planar mechanism is presented. The method is based on a subdivision of the mechanism to be analyzed into kinematic chains that are categorized as either neutral or expansion modules. The neutral modules are the well known Assur Groups, characterized by the fact that they have no effect on the degree of freedom of the mechanism. On the contrary each expansion module increases the degree of freedom by one. The coordinates that correspond to the indeterminancy of the expansion modules may be identified as a set of independent coordinates for the subdivided mechanism and used in any type of analysis. The method as it is described in the present paper has been implemented in a menu-controlled PC computer program CADME. A number of practical observations concerning the implementation of a modular approach is made and discussed.