Optimum Balancing of Slider-crank Mechanism Using Equimomental System of Point-masses

An optimization technique for dynamic balancing of planar mechanisms is presented in this paper. The shaking forces and shaking moments developed due to inertia forces in mechanisms are minimized using the genetic algorithm (GA). The inertial properties of rigid links of mechanism are represented by dynamically equivalent systems of point-masses. The shaking force and shaking moment are then evaluated in terms of the point-mass parameters and presented as the objective function for the proposed optimization problem. Using the point-mass parameters as design variables, the solution of this optimization problem optimizes the mass distribution of each link. The results obtained by using genetic algorithm are found better than the conventional optimization algorithm results. The masses and inertias of the optimized links are computed from the optimized design variables. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is shown by applying it to a problem of slider-crank planar mechanism available in the literature.