摘要:The essence of mechanism synthesis is to find the mechanism for a given motion
or task. There are three customary tasks for kinematic synthesis: function
generation, path generation and rigidbody guidance. The task is often defined
by a number of prescribed displacements and orientations called precision
points. Conceptual design of mechanisms has two main stages: (i) Type Synthesis,
where the number, type and connectivity of links and joints are determined,
and (ii) Dimensional synthesis, where the link lengths and pivot positions at
the starting position are computed. From the first stage we already get a
mechanism represented by a graph (Pucheta and Cardona, In Mec´anica
Computacional, volume XXVI, proc. of MECOM 2005, Buenos Aires, Argentina). To
evaluate its feasibility to fulfill a given task it must necessarily have
dimensions. To this purpose, we implement a strategy developed by Sandor and
Erdman (Advanced Mechanism Design: Analysis and Synthesis, vol. 2,
Prentice-Hall, 1984). This strategy consists in: (a) decomposing the complex
mechanism topology into Single Open Chains (SOCs), (b) solving dimensionally
each SOC using complex numbers and the analytical Precision Point Method, and
(c) reassembling the solutions. Decomposition of complex multiloop linkages into
single subsystems was deeply studied for automated kinematic and dynamic
analysis. However, its use in automated synthesis applications is less
addressed in the literature. The proposed SOCs Decomposition algorithm uses
the graph structure, the geometry of the prescribed parts and the motion
constraints data imposed on them. The resultant order of SOCs is not unique,
there could be many valid orders. The optimal order will be a compromise
between what best satisfies the solvability (number of equations
for linearization required by analytical methods) and what best matches the
number of prescribed motion constraints given by the precision points. In
spite of the complexity of this method, it produces multiple good initial
guesses for subsequent optimization stages based on gradient methods which often
fail because of the bifurcating and highly non-linear nature of this inverse
problem. The method was programmed in C++ language under the Oofelie
environment (Cardona et al., Engng Comp, 11:365–381, 1994).