Mechanical circuit element
The idea here is to make a set of mechanical standard components much like there is a
set of electrical standard components.
- Springs (linear and torsional) in analogy to capacitors
- flywheels (and masses) in analogy to inductors
- friction elements in analogy to resistors
- gear-trains in analogy to transformers
- differentials in analogy to wire-forks
- clutches in analogy to transistors
With quite a bit of an analogy breakdown for the latter ones.
Contents
Compiling mechanical circuits
Then mechanical circuits can be "compiled" just like we compile code for the generation of ASIC microchips.
One could e.g. compile systems for mechanical pulse width modulation.
Why a set of standard mechanical components may be more difficult than a set of electrical components
A complicating factor is that mechanics come with anisotropic rigid body motions in translatory and rotatory fashion while
charge in electronics behaves like an anisotropic (almost incompressible outside of dedicated components - called capacitors) fluid.
Thus additional redirection elements are needed.
Simple electric fork points (solder points) correspond to mechanical differentials (including planetary differentials).
See-saws can give a simple approximation, but they behave nonlinearly.
Why don't we have standard mechanical circuit components on the macroscale?
As one can see from electronics circuits
a set of standard components only becomes practical once one has quite big and complex systems.
Early electronics was mostly analog and highly specialised.
Similar with todays macroscale machinery like geartrains in cars or cranes or similar. These systems are quite simple and limited from a whole system perspective. And highly one off specialised for one specific task. Doing such things with nonspecialized standard components would incur a huge overhead.
Plus macroscale mechanical components are still quite expensive. Even with 3D printing.
