Assembly Configurations of Single-Loop Mechanisms With Pin Joints and Sliding Joints

This paper examines the problem of enumerating the assembly configurations (ACs), also called circuits, of planar mechanisms which can be described as a single loop. An algorithm is given which allows the user to find and distinguish the ACs of such a mechanism, by determining if each pair of adjacent links can line up. If each pair can line up, then the mechanism has one AC; otherwise, it has two ACs. It is shown that a single-loop mechanism can have no more than 2 ACs. The algorithm is demonstrated with two examples.