New approach to assess and rank the impact of revolute joint wear on the kinematic accuracy in the low-velocity planar mechanism

During the movement of the low-velocity planar mechanisms, the joint wear belonging to different positions have fairly distinctive impact on kinematic accuracy. Currently, there is a shortage of relevant approaches, functioned as a guidance to identify their major and minor effects on kinematic accuracy, which is adverse to confirm the weakest joint and restrain its impact. Aiming at this problem, based on the model of joint clearance, an approach to the calculation of its wear is proposed, and an analytical method of the sensitivity of kinematic accuracy to the joint wear is further suggested. The sensitivity method is applicable to practical engineering problems since the impact of both “position factor” and “wear factor” of the revolute joint wear on kinematic accuracy are considered. Through comparison and contrast of sensitivity, the impact on the kinematic accuracy by the joint wear can be assessed and ranked so that the weakest joint will be identified afterwards. Finally, the proposed method is verified via illustrative examples.