Motion Difference between Two Instantaneously Coincident Points

In a mechanism, a link is quite often guided along a prescribed path in another moving
link. For the velocity and acceleration analyses of such a mechanism, the differences in the
velocities and accelerations of two instantaneously coincident points belonging to the two
links have to be determined. In this section, we shall derive the expressions for these
quantities.

Figure shows a rotating rigid link (labelled 2) on which link 3 is moving along a straight
line. The configurations at the instants t and (t + δt) are, respectively, shown by the
symbols without and with a prime. Further, P2 and P3 represent two points on links 2 and
3, respectively) coincident at the instant t. The displacement of P3 can be written as

where P2 P′2 (= δP2) represents the displacement of P2 due to rotation of link 2 and
P′2 P'3(= δP3/2) represents the displacement of P3 with respect to link 2. Dividing both
sides of the foregoing equation by δt and taking the limit δt → 0, we get

where VP3/2 a is the velocity of P3 as seen by an observer attached to link 2. The direction
of VP3/2 is tangential to the path of P3 in link 2.
It may appear that the absolute acceleration of P3 can also be obtained from an equation
similar to it, i.e.
where a P3/2 is the acceleration of P3 as seen by an observer on link 2.

However, this is incorrect since an extra term has to be added to the right-hand side of
this equation as now explained.
We see that the block has moved through an additional transverse distance AP'3 because of
the rotation of link 2 and the radial motion of link 3 with respect to link 2.
When δt → 0,
From this equation, we observe that the additional displacement term is proportional to the
square of the time elapsed. Therefore, this displacement must be due to an additional
acceleration of P3 in the transverse direction. If the magnitude of this additional
acceleration is ac, then

or,

In vector notation,

This extra transverse component of acceleration is known as the Coriolis component. The
final expression for a P3, will then be

It should be noted that the direction a, is obtained by rotating VP3/2 through 90° in the
sense of ω2. For a straight-line path of P3 on link 2, the direction of a P3/2 is along the
straight line.

When link 3 moves along a curvilinear path on the rotating link 2 (see Figure), the above
equation can be written in terms of the components of a P3/2 as
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