Synthesis of Pumping Machines from Basic Principles

2 SYNTHESIS OF PUMPING MACHINES FROM BASIC PRINCIPLES 

Machine invention is clearly an act of synthesis, as is engineering design. In synthesis we construct, assemble, and put together ideas, elements, concepts, or combinations of these in order to create an artifact that hopefully does something useful. We combine elements into a whole, into a new entity. 

In the previous section, by exploring alternative mechanisms for pressurizing a liquid, we arrived at two basic geometrical machine elements, namely, a plate moving normal to its plane and a plate moving parallel to its plane. These are shown in Fig. 6.1. 

Next we take these two elements and combine them with a second stationary or moving plate to create the basic building blocks for machine design. A building block is the simplest geometrical configuration that captures the most fundamental element of the 

There are 14 distinguishable building blocks that can be constructed from the two machine elements and a second plate placed parallel or at an angle to the machine elements, as shown in Fig. 6.2. Not all of them have the same practical significance, not all of them may lead to useful design solutions, but they are all clear, distinguishable machine building blocks. 

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Synthesis of Pumping Machines from Basic Principles, 237... 

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