Abstract:

The paper presents a software package dedicated to the study of some classical mechanisms with bodies in relative motion, used in numerous real mechanical systems. The package is intended for the development of a virtual laboratory used in modern teaching of technical mechanics in engineering faculties.

The programs represent animatedly the mechanisms, as well as the trajectories, the velocities and the accelerations of the significant points. For the bodies with relative motion, the kinematic quantities (velocities and accelerations) specific to the absolute, relative and transport motion, respectively, are shown. The programs represent, also animatedly, the plane of velocities and the plane of accelerations, which are two diagrams used for the grapho-analytical study of mechanisms. The coordinates of the significant points, as well as the components of the velocities and accelerations are computed and displayed in real time.

The students are encouraged to choose and input various values of the geometrical and kinematical parameters, in order to study their impact over the running of the mechanisms. The motions of the mechanisms can be paused and continued, in order to study the instantaneous images and values of the geometrical and kinematical parameters.

The applications in the software package were successfully used at the University “Politehnica” of Bucharest, during the practical sessions for the course “Mechanics”.

Keywords:

e-learning, kinematics, mechanics, relative motion.