Specifications

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Running kinematic analysis
Now that you know the basics of kinematic analysis, let us look at how it is performed. We need an example
to work on, and this one will serve the purpose: demo.SliderCrank3D.any
When you load it and open a Model View
you will see
that this is a very simple mechanism comprising only
three segments. They are not yet connected correctly at
their joints, but they will be if you run the
KinematicAnalysis operation. Go to the Study tree, pick
KinematicAnalysis and click the run button. You will see
the model assemble and start moving.
The KinematicAnalysis is precisely an analysis. It
assembles data when it runs, and you can subsequently
investigate those results in the ChartFX
view. Pick Window -> ChartFX (new) to open it. The kind of results
you can get from the KinematicAnalysis study is everything that has to do with positions, velocities, and
accelerations. You may expand the tree until you reach the Slider segment, and you can chart its
acceleration by choosing the rDDot property.
Notice the naming of the positional properties: r is position, rDot is velocity, and rDDot is acceleration. "Dot"
or "DDot" are reflections of the mathematical custom of designating differentiation with respect to time by a
dot over the symbol. So velocity would be 'r' with a dot over, and acceleration would be 'r' with two dots.
Try browsing around the tree and look up the various available data.
You may encounter some strange looking results like this one: