A case study of designing a cam-follower mechanism with cycloidal motion

摘要

In certain railroad applications where it is desirable to use passing railcar traffic to provide automatic mechanical action to a track-fixed system, developing a cam-follower mechanism can be among the best mechanical solutions, taking into account potential impact effects caused by the contact between the wheel and the track-fixed device. To design the cam-follower mechanism, the first decision to be made is determining the follower motion, since the main concerns are to minimize shock and wear on the follower and the driven device. In this case, cycloidal motion was selected. While most of the approaches in the field of cam design have been devoted to synthesis of cam profiles, the major challenges in our case are to find an appropriate cam-follower mechanism and synthesize the follower surface profile to achieve cycloidal motion. We present a mechanism and simulate it using ADAMS software to prove the concept of our approach.