Mechanical Translational Coordinate Systems and Components

1 General Description

Each mechanical component has an associated coordinate system, called frame. This is true also for components in a simple domain like the 1D mechanical translational domain. Even the flanges in the 1D mechanical translational domain have their own coordinate systems. The connector classes Flange_a and Flange_b used for flanges in the 1D translational mechanical domain are identical but have slightly different roles, somewhat analogous to the roles of PositivePin and NegativePin in the electrical domain.

A
flange_a connector is used at the "left" side of a component, whereas a flange_b connector is used at the "right" side of the component, represented by the empty square. Each flange has an internal coordinate system characterized by the unit vector n from left to right.


2 Connectors

The connector classes PositivePin and NegativePin are identical to Pin and can be used in electrical components to help distinguish positive and negative pins.




3 Electrical Components



In the idealized
Resistor class below, the "coordinate system" (the direction of current flow in the resistor) is from p to n as inherited from TwoPin.



4 Mechanical Connectors



5 Mechanical Components

The partial base class Compliant below is extended by classes for compliant flexible mechanical components with two flanges. It can be regarded as a 1D mechanical analogue of the TwoPin base class from the electrical domain. A flange_a connector is used at the "left" side of a component, where as a flange_b connector is used at the "right" side of the component.




The
Spring class below inherits all equations apart from the constitutive spring equation from its base class Compliant.