Archimedes

Contributions of Archimedes on mechanics and design

of mechanisms

Marco Ceccarelli 1

LARM: Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics, University of Cassino and South Latium, Via G. Di Biasio 43, Cassino, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:

Received 15 January 2013

Received in revised form 2 October 2013

Accepted 12 October 2013

Available online 2 November 2013

Relevant contributions are ascribed to Archimedes as related to early developments in mechanics

with application to mechanism design with a modern vision. Archimedes developed theoretical

advances thatweremotivated by and applied to practical problemswith an enthusiastic behaviour

and with a modern spirit that can be summarized in his motto ‘Give me a place to stand and I will

move the earth’. In this paper his contribution tomechanics is discussed as related to his results in

designing and successfully operating mechanisms.

Keywords: © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

History of Mechanical Engineering

History of mechanics

Mechanism design

Archimedes

1. Introduction

Since Renaissance Archimedes' mechanics has been reconsidered together with a new attention to Greek–Roman machine

designs with the aim to develop an early approach for modern theory of mechanisms, as outlined in [1].

The works of Archimedes, mainly in the aspects of mechanism design, has been rediscovered and studied during Renaissance,

as for example in the works [2–5]. They were used as fundamental backgrounds for the first developments of early TMM (Theory

of Mechanisms and Machines) by Guidobaldo Del Monte [6] and Galileo Galilei [7,8]. Even at the beginning of the modern TMM in

the 19th century Archimedes' contribution was recognized in identifying basic conceptual elements, like for example in the works

[9,10]. The modernity of Archimedes in MMS (Mechanism and Machine Science) can today still be advised in his approach of

classification for the variety of mechanism designs as function of a unique principle in the operation mechanics, as indicated in

[11], following the earlier Aristotelian work ‘Mechanical Problems’.

The major contributions of Archimedes that can be understood in the field of modern MMS, can be recognized in:

- identification and analysis of basic elements of machines and mechanisms, as pointed out in [8]

- analysis of machinery operation as function of a unique concept that he identified in the functionality of levers

- application of theory to successful practical designs that since his time gave dignity of discipline to machine design

- enthusiasm and optimism in mechanism design in developing technology for enhancing society and quality of life.

These aspects make his machine designs of relevant significance in the History of Engineering. In this paper attention is

addressed to cranes with pulley systems, war machines, odometers, and other machine designs for which Archimedes' influence

can be recognized.

From a viewpoint of the History of Mechanical Engineering, his achievement in defining and using an early concept of pair of

forces and its equilibrium rule for the design and operation of mechanisms in machines was never too much stressed.

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