A Computational Approach to Profile Generation of Planar Cam Mechanisms

Abstract

A new approach, called a Relative Motion Method (RMM), is proposed for designing the shape of the disk cam, which uses the relative velocity and the relative acceleration of a follower respect to a cam to discover the profile coordinate, the pressure angle and the radius of curvature on the cam. It is characterized by the procedures of automatic derivation and solution with computers and the suitability not only for general disk cams with different kinds of follower, such as sharp edge follower, roller follower, flat-faced follower, and so on, but also for the double-disk conjugate cams, single-disk conjugate cams and roller gear conjugate cams. A program for design automation of shape of the disk cam and the kinematics simulation of this kind of mechanism has been developed using the proposed approach with C++ language. Finally, an example is given.