Theoretical design of a self-rectifying 4-bar linkage mechanism

Abstract Mechanical systems will almost inevitably fail at some point during operation. This can either be due to a preexisting design flaw or some unexpected damage during usage. No matter how much planning and fault analysis is performed it is impossible to create a perfectly reliable machine. Existing approaches to improving reliability normally involve advances in modeling and detection to include specific mechanisms to overcome a particular failure or mitigate its effect. Whilst this has gone a long way to increasing the operational life of a machine, the overall complexity of systems has improved sharply and it is becoming more and more difficult to predict and account for all possible failure modes. Rather than focusing on mitigating or reducing the probability of failure, a new design philosophy is proposed that allows systems to reconfigure themselves to overcome failure – thus yielding a self-healing design. This approach is demonstrated in the design of a self- rectifying 4-bar linkage mechanism.