Abstract:
Simulation and study of joint clearances has usually focused on appropriate simulation strategies and their validation against experiments. The effect of joint clearances on the output of a mechanism has been usually evaluated qualitatively. The relative importance of different joints in a mechanism in producing deviation from the output of an ideal mechanism has not been studied. This work identifies the appropriate statistical measure for quantifying this deviation and uses it to rank the joints of one degree of freedom multi-loop planar mechanisms. The inversions of six-bar mechanism have been studied through ADAMS simulations involving different clearance sizes and speed of crank. A trend in clearance location ranking has been identified which can probably be extended to planar mechanisms of higher complexity.