Title: Path synthesis of the four-bar mechanism using meta-heuristic algorithms

Authors: Mir Mohammad Ettefagh; Moslem Abbasi; Habib Emdadi

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran ' Department of Computer Science, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract: In this paper, artificial bee colony, and particle swarm optimisation algorithms are used for the synthesis of the four-bar mechanisms in path generating process based on optimisation methods for the fist time. The main goal is to extract the optimised dimension of mechanism links to transmit coupler point in the desired path with minimum error. In addition, the object mechanism has dimensional limitations such as the crank link should rotate 360 degrees completely which is defined in suitable manner as the constrained of the optimisation problem. Mentioned optimisation algorithms are applied on two case studies with prescribed vertical and circular path and the results are compared with binary genetic algorithm. With studying the performance of the mentioned meta-heuristic algorithms in producing the desired path, some interesting results are reported based on accuracy and convergence of the algorithms.

Keywords: four-bar mechanisms; mechanism synthesis; path generation; metaheuristics; artificial bee colony; ABC optimisation; PSO; particle swarm optimisation; coupler point; genetic algorithms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRIS.2014.066248

International Journal of Reasoning-based Intelligent Systems, 2014 Vol.6 No.3/4, pp.109 - 117

Published online: 08 Apr 2015 *

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