Positive locking
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Abstract concept page. For more concrete examples(s) see links in section "Related" below.
Positive locking is in essence about an energy barrier against
- undesired disassembly or
- undesired positional dislocation (not self restoring)
such that these events FAPP can not happen by means of external perturbations like e.g.
- mechanical shocks and shaking at any scale or
- thermal motion near the nanoscale.
FAPP means other effects would dominate fist.
- Things would break elsewhere first from shocks and vibrations.
- Things would melt first from the thermal motions .
The only way to non-destructively change the configuration of positively locked systems
is by brain rather than brawn. One has to go in there and "pull the right levers".
Positive locking can give high reliability.
It keeps things safely in machine phase even for enormous amounts of parts.
(I.e. mols worth of parts). Keeping non-thermal system entropy from increasing.