Development of controllable spherical fluid friction hinges for exact spatial mechanisms

This paper focuses on the development of a special method for determining the workspace of hexapods. For this purpose, the ranges of possible angle positions of the hexapod-mechanism were determined and a controllable spherical hinge structure was designed. Moreover, the characteristics of the individual aero- and hydrostatic bearing elements and the effect of the single factors on the characteristics of a bearing element were determined; the bearing reaction was controlled by applying pressure with a working fluid. At the same time, the general control characteristics of the bearing element were defined. The controllable spherical aero- and hydrostatic bearing was calculated and designed on the basis of the Monte Carlo method.