Analysis and Synthesis Procedures for Geneva Mechanism Design

This paper contains general analytical results which can be applied to high-speed Geneva design. The results are derived from classical mechanics theory and provide explicit relationships between the performance parameters (those parameters such as contact stress, maximum load, etc., which can have a significant effect on the mechanism performance) and the design variables which specify a Geneva mechanism (number of slots, wheel diameter, pin diameter, etc.). In the past, the complexity of the mathematical formulation of this problem has precluded synthesis of the Geneva wheel proportions. Using these results, however, it is now possible to synthesize the wheel configuration directly, instead of by a repeated trial and error analysis. Two examples are given demonstrating the analysis and synthesis techniques.