A technique for designing an interference-free complex planar mechanism

A complex planar mechanism is usually represented by its simplified schematic representation, called the kinematic skeleton diagram, in both synthesis and analysis. Some deficiencies may occur as a result of representing the actual links with their simple schematic equivalents. Most importantly, interferences between links may not be evident from the kinematic skeleton diagram. This project yields a top-down technique to assist the design of an interference free mechanism, which designers currently accomplish through intuition and trial and error methods.; Design of an interference free complex planar mechanism is initiated by utilizing existing synthesis and analysis techniques. The result is a kinematic skeleton diagram of the design. The solution to the interference problem in a complex planar mechanism is initialized by placing links into different layers. To ensure a link, called a reference link, does not interfere with other links within its layer, the work space of those links with respect to the reference link is generated. The resulting domain, called a "swept plane", establishes an illegal region whose complement identifies the feasible region to place the geometry of the reference link. The boundary representation technique is used to define the link geometries of the mechanism.; The issue of integrating complex planar mechanism design software is also addressed in this thesis. A relational data model is developed to coordinate the software used for interference free link design.