Structural model for conceptual design of mechanical products using characteristic matrix

This paper presents a new kinematic and structural knowledge of products representation method, which is capable of transforming graphed information to computable manner for computer-aided conceptual design of mechanical products. For the view of kinematic analysis, mechanical products are composed of mechanisms in series, parallel and hybrid combination patterns. Therefore, the paper first gives a definition of a basic mechanism unit (BMU) with single-DOF or multi-DOF that derived from a basic kinematic chain unit (BKCU). Then, kinematic characteristics and structural characteristics of the BMU, links and kinematic pairs are abstracted. Thirdly, a computable characteristic representation modelling, which is referred as a functional characteristic adjacent matrix (FCAM), is constructed based on topological graph of BMU to describe the kinematic characteristics and structural characteristics of the BMU. Fourthly, structural modelling of combined BMUs in series, parallel and hybrid, that is the model of mechanical products characteristics, is built by the linking properties between BMUs. Finally, the proposed structural representation method is illustrated by an example of gear trains and their combination.