In this study, a method enumerating kinematic chains using contracted graphs is developed with several improvement in the process. Also, the author proposes a 6-level scheme to classify kinematic chains and a type synthesis method for systematic conceptual design of mechanism. These are stated as follows:
1. In the stage of number synthesis, a very efficient method is developed using partitioning concept of combinatorial theory.
2. Enumerating procedure of contracted graphs of kinematic chains is automated by the recursive application of contracted graph method and enumeration of them is accomplished upto the case of 6 independent loops.
3. For the detection of degenerate kinematic chains, new algorithm is developed which uses sequential removal of binary link string. Several useful theorems are derived for determining type of freedom of a kinematic chain. And the developed algorithm is used in the determination of the type of freedom of a kinematic chain with the derived theorems.
4. By the above improvements, the range of the enumeration of kinematic chains is extended to the cases of zero and negative degree of freedom as well as the case of more complex positive dof kinematic chains.
5. The proposed scheme for the classification of kinematic chains needs no separate effort because kinematic chains are classified automatically through the enumeration of kinematic chains using contracted graphs. But, the classification of kinematic chains according to the proposed scheme has more recognizable sturctural properties of kinematic chains.
6. Type synthesis procedure using strategy of depth-first search is proposed and applied to several examples, which bears reasonable types of mechanism. This strategy is very efficient because the number of mechanisms increases explosively when the number of links is increases.
