Consider the design of a windshield wiper blade mounted on the “coupler” Conside

Question

Consider the design of a windshield wiper blade mounted on the “coupler”

Consider the design of a windshield wiper blade mounted on the "couple" link of a 4-bar mechanism as illustrated in the generic figure below. Your design is intended to move the blade in such a way that the blade cleans the maximum surface of the rectangle possible. The supports of the 4 bar mechanism must be in the area below the rectangles as shown. Construct a computer model or a cardboard/wood model of it and determine (calculate- measure) the surface area cleaned by the blade using your mechanism. Provide a table with dimensions of the links of the mechanism (distances between joints) and the coupler link. If you build a cardboard-wood model, you only need to provide pictures illustrating the motion and the surface cleaned. Finally you must describe your approach to your design and to calculate the cleaned surface. Calculate the clean surface ratio R= Sc/Sw (cleaned surface area/windshield surface area)

Explanation / Answer

By using four bar linkage and preparing a card boad model, the maximum area which can be cleaned by the wiper blade would be an area of a part of the semi - circle or arc of a circle.

We assume the area to be prescribed in the area of a rectangle whose breadth is 1.25 ft.

And the length of the rectangle can be found out by the rotation of coupler link, the maximum length of the rectangle would be two times the length of coupler link that is

length l = 1.5ft

So, the maximum area which could be cleaned by the wiper is = l*b = 1.5*1.25 = 1.875ft2

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