An approach to the design of models of dynamical systems with high dry friction in the kinematic pair is developed. The members of the kinematic pair are represented by parts of rigid bodies. The system as a whole is considered to have a variable structure. According to this assumption, two modes of motion with different dissipative characteristics are possible. The states in which the modes exchange and the motion switches over into critical modes with dynamic self-locking are established. A system with a variable transfer function between members that form a nonideal constraint is described Introduction. Dry or mixed friction is to some extent manifested in movable joints (kinematic pairs) of real mechanisms. However, these forces are in most cases low in magnitude and have an insignificant effect on the motion and loading of mechanical systems. There are mechanisms in which the influence of forces of friction is significant or even governing. These are, for example, self-locking mechanisms: wedge (Fig. 1a), worm, screw, some differential, planetary, geared linkage, differential cam, link, and other mechanisms [2,6,8,10]. The fundamental feature of self-locking mechanisms is that the driving and driven members cannot exchange their functions-such mechanisms can be set in motion by applying a force to the driving member, whereas any force acting on the driven member does not activate the mechanism [1]. There are critical values of the geometrical, inertial, and energy parameters at which such mechanisms (even with a one-degree-of-freedom kinematic pair) exhibit paradoxical behavior first described in [9] in 1895 and known as Painlevé paradoxes. Later, prominent scientists of the day (Prandtl, Lecornu, de Sparre, Klein, Hamel, etc.) resolved these paradoxes by showing that in some cases it is necessary to take into account elastic strains in contacting solids [9, Discussion] or to use intermediate, rather than limiting, values of the coefficient of sliding friction [3,9], according to the essence of the dynamic process. The heightened interest to models with friction is objective [13,16] and, in particular, associated with the design of seismic isolation systems for buildings [11,12,14,15], one such system shown in Fig. 1c. The transfer function u ba of this mechanism (ratio of the velocities of its members: foundation (a) and building (b)) is a variable function of their relative position, and self-locking may occur in some range of generalized coordinates. A similar behavior is typical of many other (cam (Fig. 1b), link, etc.) mechanisms [4,6].This paper develops a mathematical model of two-or three-link mechanisms with a nonideal holonomic constraint, gives the main relations for mechanisms with a nonlinear transfer function u q ba a 1063-7095/07/4305-0554