Using a Bennett linkage as a connector between other Bennett loops

Abstract

The remarkable Bennett linkage has been used almost from the time of its announcement in 1903 as a fecund source of other kinematic loops and networks. Various techniques have been applied to yield an impressive number of products. Put forward here is a procedure by which the whole loop functions as an articulation between members of two other chains, resulting in a complex spatial network of a type having possible value as a deployable structure. An algebraic analysis also provides the determination of displacement-closure equations for two different forms of six-bar loop incorporated in the assemblage, one of them new to the literature.