On nonassembly in the optimal dimensional synthesis of planar mechanisms

This paper presents a general method for treating nonassembly in the optima l synthesis of planar mechanisms. The synthesis is performed with gradient based optimization algorithms and the sensitivities are calculated analytic ally through the method of direct differentiation. The analysis is based on the well-established and general method of computational kinematics. In th is study the residuals of the joint constraint equations are minimized rath er than equated to zero. This makes it possible to perform the kinematic an alysis for any proposed design even though it may not be possible to assemb le the mechanism. Several examples are provided.