Spreadsheet-based interactive design and analysis of mechanisms using Excel and Ch

A spreadsheet-based mechanism analysis and animation system is presented in this article. The system is developed in Excel using Ch, an embeddable C/C++ interpreter, and Ch Mechanism Toolkit. It allows users to develop and solve complicated planar mechanism problems conveniently using an easy to use Excel spreadsheets as the front end. Users can input the required data to define a mechanism in an Excel spreadsheet and execute script files associated with the work cells. The spreadsheet based system can be used for kinematic and dynamic analysis, graphical plotting, and animation for four bar, crank-slider, five bar, and six bar linkages. The system is open architecture. Users can extend the system for design and analysis of other mechanisms. Examples are provided to illustrate its ease of use. The source code for examples are available for downloading from the internet.