Epsilon co-function for planar mechanisms
One of the most important and most challenging tasks of a mechanism analysis is the problem of mechanism kinematics. This paper shows the way to determine unknown angular accelerations of joint-bar mechanism components, by applying so-called (by authors) epsilon co-function. Using this method, the problem is reduced onto an analysis of relative angular accelerations of neighboring members within the mechanism and determination of a moment of all those vectors with respect to a point or an axis. The main contribution of this paper is that it shows the novel method how to calculate angular accelerations of mechanism members using analog form of equations that are similar to the moment balance equations in statics. Considering that the relative angular velocity vectors play role of forces in statics, this paper shows how to form a system of kinematic equations similar to moment equations in statics, which are sufficient to solve for all angular accelerations of a mechanism.