Application-Oriented Mechanism Design at the Example of a Packaging Machine

This paper presents a customized mechanism synthesis approach applied to develop an alternative solution for the longitudinal folder mechanism of a beverage packaging machine. After an analysis of the motion task the resulting requirements are subdivided into those related to kinematics and those related to time. In a first design step kinematic structures to solve the motion task are identified. For this purpose a new developed successive structural synthesis method is applied. For the evaluation of identified structures a set of criteria is defined and suitable evaluation methods are presented. In a second design step, for selected structures necessary mechanism parameters are determined. There for adapted dimensional synthesis methods are implemented in a dynamic interactive geometry tool. In this way the designer's experience is considered in the optimization process. Finally results of the dimensional synthesis are presented and discussed.