Parameterization for addressing tasks on flat lever mechanisms kinematic analysis in the AutoCAD environment

The objectives on identifying all the links' position in a flat lever mechanism within the considered time period, as well as determining the values of displacements, speeds and accelerations for the mechanism's characteristic points are applied in engineering calculations in the course of the mechanisms designing process. Conducting kinematic analysis using the graphoanalytic method is a fairly accurate and visual method in training, but it is quite time-consuming and contains a lot of routine operations. This paper demonstrates a solution enabling to significantly reduce the number of routine operations by creating a dynamic block for the mechanism's initial position with the parametric dependencies setting up. Designing is performed in the AutoCAD environment. This solution will help to quickly and accurately build a set of the flat lever mechanism links' positions and display the characteristic curves for angular coordinates and time. The algorithm for creating such a block, as well as the features of working with parametric models are described. The proposed method allows to introduce the research elements in studying the discipline "Theory of mechanisms and machines". By imposing dimensional and geometric constraints, one can trace their influence on changing kinematic diagrams of the path, speed and acceleration. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.