• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.597-604
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• 2010

This study focuses on the design of a mechanical joint for a zero moment crane (ZMC), which is a specialized loading/unloading system used in a mobile harbor (MH). The mechanical joint is based on the concept of zero moment point (ZMP), and it plays an important role in stabilizing a ZMC. For effective stabilization, it is necessary to ensure that the mechanical joint is robust to a wide variety of loads; further, the joint must allow the structures connected to it to perform rotational motion with two degrees of freedom By adopting a traditional design process, we designed a new mechanical joint; in this design, a universal joint is coupled with a spherical joint, and then, deformable rolling elements are incorporated. The rolling elements facilitate load distribution and help in decreasing power loss during loading/unloading. Because of the complexity of the proposed system, Kriging-based approximate optimization method is used for enhancing the optimization efficiency. In order to validate the design of the proposed mechanical joint, a structural analysis is performed, and a small-scale prototype is built.