SimMechanics™ 2.7.1

Product Description

• Introduction and Key Features
• Building Mechanical Systems
• Simulating and Analyzing Mechanical Motion
• Developing and Testing Controls
• Exporting Assemblies from CAD Systems into SimMechanics
• Multidomain Physical Modeling in Simulink

Simulating and Analyzing Mechanical Motion

By simulating your SimMechanics model, you can impose kinematic constraints, apply forces and torques, and measure the resulting motions and forces. You can also develop and test motion-driving actuators, such as electric motors, ball screws, hydraulic cylinders, and engines.

SimMechanics supports five motion analysis modes:

• Forward Dynamics—Assigns driving forces and torques to the motion-driving actuators and calculates the resulting motions of the entire system
• Inverse Dynamics and Kinematics—Determines the forces and torques that must be exerted by the actuators to produce user-specified motions
• Trimming—Identifies the steady-state equilibrium points to be used for linearization and system analysis
• Linearization—Extracts a linear model that predicts the system’s response to perturbations in driving forces, joint and constraint configurations, and initial conditions

Collectively, these modes of analysis enable you to test mechanical performance, select proper actuation systems, and develop optimal controls.

Creating Animations

SimMechanics gives you access to all standard MATLAB graphics functions, and automatically creates three-dimensional animations of your mechanical system.

With the Virtual Reality Toolbox (available separately) you can connect to a VRML environment and create presentation-quality animations.



Virtual Reality Toolbox animation of the four-cylinder engine model in the Web browser during simulation (top) and a MATLAB visualization of the same engine model (bottom). Click on images to see enlarged views.