Optimisation design of six-bar double dwell mechanisms: A new approach

This paper introduces a new approach for me- chanical design of planar six-bar linkages with rotary joints which produce two dwells in each cycle of the input crank. The approach builds on the concept of function generation in a simple manner. The synthesis problem is posed as a single- objective constrained optimisation problem. A genetic algorithm-based optimisation scheme, namely the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) has been used for solving the optimisation problem. The proposed method has been illustrated by means of an example problem from a recent contribution to literature. It is seen that the results compare favourably with the existing work. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.