Optimal Kinematic Synthesis of Planar Mechanism, Part I: Offset Crank-Slider Mechanism

Optimal synthesis of mechanisms is a successful approach for mechanism design to satisfy all the desired characteristics of the designed mechanism. The crank ? slider mechanism has wide industrial applications and providing an offset feature provides a design with a stroke greater than its crank length and a time ratio greater than one. The optimal design problem in this case is a constrained multi-dimensional problem. Powell optimization technique is used to minimize a special objective function combining the mechanism stroke and time ratio. 2 functional constraint functions are used for the minimum and maximum transmission angle of the mechanism. The optimal results are fitted in a proper nonlinear model relating the normalized mechanism dimensions to the normalized stroke and time ratio. A comparison is conducted between the optimal design and the non-optimal one illustrating the advantages of the optimal approach