Defining and Simulating a Mechanism

To define and analyze a mechanism:

1. Review your product concept.

Identify the components of interest, how they are connected, and what drives the movement of the components. Determine which characteristics of the product you want to understand by running a system-level simulation.

2. Add constraints to define assembly movement.

Any elements that move as a unit are defined as a rigid body. Constraints define how rigid bodies are attached and how they move relative to each other. A joint constrains the relative movement of a pair of rigid bodies by physically connecting them. COSMOSMotion provides a wide variety of joints.

3. Apply motion to the constraints in your mechanism.

As you define joints, you can attach motion inputs to the joint’s free degrees of freedom. A motion can input either rotational or translational motion as a function of time. For example, the function, TIME * 360d, defines a motion driver that rotates one body one complete revolution (360 degrees) with respect to another body per unit of time.

4. Add applied loads (optional, COSMOSMotion only).

Applied loads are external forces and torques that act on your mechanism.

5. Run a simulation of the mechanism.

You invoke the embedded simulation engine, ADAMS/Solver, which solves the equations of motion for your mechanism. ADAMS/Solver calculates the displacement, velocity, acceleration, and reaction forces acting on each moving part in the mechanism.

6. Review the simulation results.
   
   You can view an animation of the simulation. Animations help you understand the behavior of your mechanism and communicate that information to others.
   
   You can also use the numeric output of the simulation to help understand the various characteristics of your mechanism. For example, COSMOSMotion reports the loads for each joint and motion. Joint loads can be used to set up load cases for the structural analysis of any component in your mechanism.