The solution methods for position analysis shown so far in this chapter are all of "closed form," meaning that they provide the solution with a direct, noniterative approach. * In some situations, particularly with multiloop mechanisms, a closedform solution may not be attainable. Then an alternative approach is needed, and the Newton-Raphson method (sometimes just called Newton's method) provides one that can solve sets of simulta-neous nonlinear equations. Any iterative solution method requires that one or more guess values be provided to start the computation. It then uses the guess values to obtain a new