Abstract
The revelation of mechanism bifurcation is essential in the design and analysis of reconfig- urable mechanisms. The first- and second-order based methods have successfully revealed the bifurcation of mechanisms. However, they fail in the novel Schatz-inspired metamor- phic mechanisms presented in this paper. Here, we present the third- and fourth-order based method for their bifurcation revelation using screw theory. Based on the constraint equations derived from the first- and second-order kinematics, only one linearly indepen- dent relationship between joint angular velocities at the singular configuration of the new mechanism can be generated, which means the bifurcation cannot be revealed in this way. Therefore, we calculate constraint equations from the third- and fourth-order kinematics, and attain two linearly independent relationships between joint angular accelerations at the same singular configuration that correspond to different curvatures of the kinematic curves of two motion branches in the configuration space. Moreover, motion branches in Schatz-inspired metamorphic mechanisms are demonstrated.
| Original language | English |
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| Article number | 103931 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Mechanism and Machine Theory |
| Volume | 152 |
| Early online date | 7 Jun 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |