One of the main goals of multibody dynamics research is to develop formulations that automatically derive
the equations of motions for complex mechanical systems. Equations of motion are formulated systematically and then solved numerically. This paper studies analytic methods for formulating the equation of motions, with emphasis on the graph theoretic modelling approach. The graph theoretic approach is proposed for modelling and analysis of planar mechanical systems. The development of the CAD system incorporating graph theoretic models would be used for mechanical analysis. A graphical user interface will be used to capture the design and to display the solutions of the dynamic and kinematic computations. Throughout the analysis, the CAD tool (PMech) would be useful for relieving the engineer’s task of doing the calculations by hand, the result of kinematic and dynamic analysis of the different prototypes constitutes the graphical display of the mechanism, enhancing the engineer’s understanding of the mechanical behaviour under consideration.

Keywords : CAD, computer graphics, constraint motion, graph theory, simulation.