4-Bar Linkage

The Four-Bar Linkage is the simplest mechanism, that consists exclusively of "revolute" (pin, pivoted) joints. It is used in a great variety of machines and devices.

Mechanism Analysis is the process of investigating the positions, velocity and acceleration (kinematics) and forces (kinetics) of an existing mechanism.

Mechanism Synthesis is the process of searching a mechanism type and specific link dimensions of that mechanism to accomplish a desired task.

The above example allows you to do both - of course somewhat limited.

You can

• animate the mechanism (button start and stop)
• see the graphs of the follower link's angle, angular velocity and angular acceleration
• see the curve of a coupler link point.
• manipulate the coupler link point's coordinates via dragging (Observe the change of the graphs).
• Move around the coupler point and see it's curve changing.

This examples uses the code snippets grips and cartesian viewport.

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