Title: Alternate driving mechanism for a lever propelled wheelchair

Authors: Chendur Singaram Senthilnathan; Kartik Prakash; Thillaigovindan Ramesh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur High Road, Tiruchirappalli – 620015, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur High Road, Tiruchirappalli – 620015, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Thanjavur High Road, Tiruchirappalli – 620015, India

Abstract: This paper deals with the design and analysis of a mechanism for a wheelchair which is propelled using the lever with our hands. The mechanism is placed on both sides of the wheelchair and is actuated independently with a lever on each side. The lever which is pivoted about an axis to the sides with help of bearing has to be pushed and pulled continuously to propel the wheelchair. Two sprockets and the lever of the mechanism are constrained to rotate together mounted over a bearing attached to the frame of the wheelchair on both sides. These two sprockets are each meshed with a freewheel which is coaxially placed with the axis of rotation of wheels of the wheelchair through cycle chains. One of the sprocket and freewheel on both sides is meshed in cross-over chain configuration. This enables the wheelchair to propel forward in both push and pull strokes of the lever.

Keywords: lever; sprocket; freewheel; push; pull; cross-chain; propel; manually driven; mechanism; bicycle chain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRS.2018.090273

International Journal of Mechanisms and Robotic Systems, 2018 Vol.4 No.2, pp.81 - 88

Received: 19 Dec 2016
Accepted: 22 Jul 2017

Published online: 07 Mar 2018 *

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