Mechanism Design and Mechanism Dynamics > Mechanism Design > Creating Mechanism Models > Analysis > Kinematic Analyses > About Kinematic Analysis
  
About Kinematic Analysis
Use a kinematic analysis to evaluate the motion of your mechanism as driven by servo motors. You can use any motion axis servo motors with a profile that will result in finite acceleration.
 
* The analysis type that was called Kinematic or Repeated Assembly analysis in previous releases of Mechanism Design is now called Position.
Kinematics is a branch of dynamics that deals with aspects of motion apart from consideration of mass and force. A kinematic analysis simulates the mechanism's motion, satisfying the requirements of your servo motor profiles and any joint, cam-follower, slot-follower, or gear-pair connection. A kinematic analysis does not take forces into account. Therefore, you cannot use force motors, and you do not have to specify mass properties for your mechanism. Dynamic entities in the model, such as springs, dampers, gravity, forces/torques, and force motors, do not affect a kinematic analysis.
If your servo motor has a noncontinuous profile, an attempt is made to make the profile continuous before running a kinematic analysis. If the profile is such that the software cannot make it continuous, the motor is not used for the analysis.
Use a kinematic analysis to obtain information on:
Position, velocity, and acceleration of geometric entities and connections
Interference between components
Trace curves of the mechanism's motion
Motion envelopes that capture the mechanism's motion as a part
Click Mechanism Analysis to open the Analysis Definition dialog box and create, edit, and run your analyses.