A PC-based interactive program is developed for the analysis of intermittent motions of planar mechanisms. For the kinematic analysis, the system of nonlinear equations composed of joint constraint equations and driving conditions is simultaneously solved by the Newton-Raphson method. The velocities and accelerations are then solved by sets of linear derivative equations.
This method can be applicable to general types of mechanisms with multiple loops. To keep track of the local contact or non-contact state, the geometric detail of the potential contact part of the mating components is described by splines.
The structure of the program is consistent with the existing software, MechTOOL, developed previously for the representation and kinematic analysis by using component approach. The program is illustrated by analyzing several examples from multi-loop mechanisms and the Geneva Wheel.
