Basic Computer Modeling of Mechanisms

In the previous chapters we introduced techniques and developed equations for finding displacement, velocity, and accelerations for an in-line and offset slider crank mechanism. In addition, we introduced modeling techniques for finding the angular displacement for a 4-bar mechanism. However, all the methods were just “snap-shots” for a given input angle \(\theta _2\) . In this chapter we develop code that allows us to solve for the full range of motions. This section focuses on developing simple computer models for solving a 2 \(\times \) 2 linear equation and 3 \(\times \) 3 linear equation using Cramer’s rule. In addition, the code to generate plots for topics discussed in Chaps.  2 and 3 is given. We start with the 2 \(\times \) 2 matrix and code generated using MATLAB®.