Application of Spatial Mechanisms in Bioreactors: A Design Concept

Bioreactors are used in a lot of biological processes. Rotating bioreactor devices are a part of modern biotechnologies used for growth of human cells in vitro. In this paper we suggest and study a mechanism with spatial motion for bioreactors. The authors suggest that the possibility should be investigated to use couplers as carriers of bioreactor chambers with spatial motion. In the traditional literature on the theory of mechanisms and machines, the kinematics and dynamics of spatial motions of coupler links is poorly covered or not mentioned at all. We analyze the possibilities of implementation of spatial mechanisms with one or two degrees of freedom (DoF) with close kinematic chain (CKC), i.e a coupler, in bioreactor devices, which requires an extensive analysis of coupler's spatial motion. Furthermore, the possibility is studied of using the coupler's rotation around its own axis when both of the kinematic pairs (KP) to which it is linked are spherical ones of the 3rd class. Using mechanisms with CKC for bioreactors will reduce the number of motors necessary to drive bioreactor's chamber in 3D space. We have developed prototypes of these types of mechanisms for bioreactors  .