Cranking planar mechanisms on a microcomputer (Q1057670)

A new method is presented for analysing the motion of planar mechanisms with an arbitrary number of members and degrees of freedom. In the method a complex vector notation is applied to derive the kinematic equations for parameters of the whole mechanism in a matrix form. The solution of these equations enables to determine velocities and accelerations of the joints and the members of the mechanism under study. A direct generation of coupler curves is also possible. A computer program has been written in BASIC language to be used on microcomputers and several examples of application of the method have been given.