III. Kinematic Analysis and Synthesis - SK

Kinematics

From performing a mobility analysis, I confirmed that my 5-bar slotted slider mechanism has one degree of freedom. The mechanism contains five total links, five full joints, and one half joint (the slot pin). The following can be plugged into the equation:

M = 3(L - 1) - 2J1 - J2   →   M = 3(5 - 1) - 2(5) - 1   →   M = 1 DOF.

I also calculated expressions for the position, velocity, and acceleration of the important points on the mechanism to determine the motion through the mechanism's range of motion. To do so, I split the mechanism into two sections and performed a kinematic analysis on each. I performed kinematic analysis by deriving a vector loop equation for each section of the mechanism and then solving for each kinematic expression. The on-paper kinematic analysis obtained is shown below:

Kinematic Analysis - Seniru Kottegoda.pdf

The kinematic expressions obtained were then used to get the values of all the points throughout the revolution of the input link via MATLAB code (code available in Appendix). Below are the graphs representing the position, velocity, and acceleration of the slider block with an input angular velocity of 1 rad/s and angular acceleration of 1 rad/s:

Figure 1. Plots of the slider position, velocity, and acceleration.

Also, I calculated the Coriolis acceleration of the vertical sliding block. The plot is shown below:

Figure 2. Magnitude of Coriolis acceleration for full range of motion.

Animation

Finally, below is an animation of the mechanism on PMKS:

Video 1. Animation of 5-bar mechanism using PMKS.