Bifurcation of a special line and plane symmetric Bricard linkage

In this paper, the attention is drawn to a special Bricard linkage with both line and plane symmetry. The closure equations of the linkage have been derived. The characteristics of bifurcation have been discussed in details. The result not only provides the solution to avoid bifurcation, but also offers the possibility in design of reconfigurable structures. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.