PMKS returns quick and accurate results for the position, velocity, and acceleration of rigid bodies connected as planar mechanisms. The PMKS term refers to a calculator - a compiled dynamic library (e.g. .dll) which performs the necessary math operations to create values for the state variables of a mechanism's movement. This calculator can be accessed: 1) through an Excel macro, 2) through .NET programs, or 3) from an online graphical user-interface written in Silverlight (which is deemed PMKS_Web, but for simplicity we refer to if by the same name, PMKS). This can always be found at the Persistent URL...

http://purl.org/pmks/

The usefulness in PMKS_Web comes in the abilitiy to quickly draft and analyze mechanisms. Unlike commercial tools, PMKS is pure kinematics, which is a good thing in that you do not need to specify masses, or stiffnesses. We have shown in technical papers that the approach is quicker and more accurate than other approaches. Furthermore, a novel approach to analyzing non-dyadic mechanisms has been developed which gives unprecedented results (see examples in rightmost column of examples table).

The implementation is lightweight and runs completely within the browser as a Silverlight application. You can download two small files and run it locally: the webpage (pmks.html), and the binary file (PMKS.xap).

Examples

Here are some of the mechanisms created to date.

How to Use PMKS_Web

In the upper-left of the website