| Blowout preventers are used in the oil well industry to prevent accidental oil fires, and guide valves are assembled atop the preventers. The current solution is to use cranes, as this is time-consuming and expensive, a solution using an appropriate four-bar mechanism for this purpose was contemplated, using Burmester theory and the four-position synthesis method.; The angles and distance of the four positions were calculated and the data obtained was specified as input for the synthesis of the four-bar mechanism using four-position synthesis programmed in MATLAB™. The moving pivots (k) and the ground pivots (m) were obtained from the program and are used in calculating the link lengths W and Z. These link lengths were input to ADAMS™ software to simulate the behavior of the mechanism. Mechanism configurations were evaluated and the mechanical advantage was calculated to select the better design.; Results suggest that the method of four-position synthesis can used to design an appropriate mechanism to place the guide valve on the blowout preventer. |
