General Mobility Identification and Rectification of Watt Six-Bar Linkages

Mobility identification is a common problem encountered in linkage analysis and synthesis. Mobility of linkages refers to the problems concerning branch defect, full rotatability, singularities, and order of motion. By introducing the concept of stretch rotation, the paper shows the existence of a hidden five-bar loop in a Watt six-bar linkage and how it affects the formation of branches, sub-branches, as well as the whole mobility of the entire linkage. The paper presents the first methodology for a fully automated computer-aided complete mobility analysis of Watt six-bar linkages.Copyright © 2007 by ASME