ON THE DESIGN OF PLANAR MECHANISMS WITH CONSIDERATION OF INTERFERENCES OF MOVING LINKS.

The links of planar mechanisms are arranged on some parallel planes (layers) to avoid their mutual interferences. The minimum number of layers required to construct mechanisms with revolute pairs is determined from incidence matrices. All possible layer arrangements of links under the minimum number of layers are also obtained from the incidence matrices with consideration of full rotations of revolute pairs. A criterion based on layer-distances of adjacent links is proposed to select the best one out of many arrangements. Profiles of links are determined with aid of graphic display of relative loci of pairing points so that the links arranged on the same layers may not interfere with each other during a cycle of motion.