ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book covers the kinematic analysis of mechanisms: Kinematics: the study of motion without regard to forces. It provides some fundamental concepts in kinematics, and the student will learn techniques for designing linkages with CAD software, such as SOLIDWORKS. The book covers the gear train design and cam design and analysis. It focuses on mechanisms with a single degrees of freedom (DOF) , but the methods presented here can easily be extended to multiple DOF systems. In designing a mechanism, it is often critical to know its mobility, or the number of degrees of freedom (DOF) it possesses. The book shows the classification scheme for four types of Grashof linkage. When a non-Grashof linkage becomes bound up at one of its extreme positions, two of the links become collinear and the linkage assumes the shape of a triangle.
