Functional Modeling, Reverse Engineering, and Design Reuse

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gietka ◽  
Manish Verma ◽  
William H. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Reverse Engineering ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Design Reuse ◽  
Functional Design ◽  
Functional Information ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Functional Modeling ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Natural Foundation ◽  
Case Based

Experience is a tremendous asset for any designer. To leverage the experience of many designers, a general methodology for case-based functional design is required. Function-based design is a natural foundation for this methodology because its goal is to structure the solution space and support concept generation. Gaining access to experience about how functions combine will help designers to explore more, better design concepts. This experience is gleaned by reverse engineering existing products and storing and indexing the information gained. This work studies the preliminary steps in matching functional information derived from reverse engineering to that generated in the design process. A language of function developed for reverse engineering is tested in the context of design.

Application of a Genetic Algorithm to Concept Variant Selection

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan S. Hutcheson ◽  
Robert L. Jordan ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Janis P. Terpenny ◽  
Xiaomeng Chang
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Algorithm ◽  
Product Development ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Variant Selection ◽  
Functional Modeling ◽  
Detailed Design ◽  
Modeling Techniques ◽  
Break Even Point ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Selection Of

This paper outlines a framework for applying a genetic algorithm to the selection of component variants between the conceptual and detailed design stages of product development. A genetic algorithm (GA) is defined for the problem and an example is presented that demonstrates its application and usefulness. Functional modeling techniques are used to formulate the design problem and generate the chromosomes that are evaluated with the algorithm. In the presented example, suitable GA parameters and the break-even point where the GA surpassed an enumerated search of the same solution space were found. Recommend uses of the GA along with limitations of the method and future work are presented as well.

Functional design of a swim basin in the Detroit River

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1006-1014
Author(s):  
H. R. Patterson ◽  
N. K. Becker ◽  
J. A. McCorquodale
Keyword(s):  
Precast Concrete ◽  
Hydraulic Model ◽  
Fecal Coliforms ◽  
Functional Design ◽  
Detroit River ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Model Studies ◽  
Concrete Cylinders ◽  
Filter Water ◽  
Peak Summer

Many urban beaches on fresh water lakes and rivers face closure during peak summer periods due to dangerous concentrations of fecal coliforms and other waterborne contaminants. One such example is the Lake Erie Metro Park which is located approximately 22 km (14 miles) downriver of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, at the mouth of the Detroit River.N.K. Becker & Associates Ltd. was retained in 1985 to research and develop a functional design for a swim basin that will be formed by cordoning off an area of the Detroit River with a breakwater. A unique feature of this breakwater is that it is being designed to filter water from the Detroit River to the extent required for safe swimming. When it is constructed in 1988, it will be capable of accommodating approximately 1500 swimmers.Extensive hydraulic model studies were carried out at the universities of Windsor and Michigan to research and develop a functional design for this facility. The methodology used to develop the design concepts for this swim basin as well as the results of the testing program are described in this paper. Key words: fecal coliforms, swim basin, sand filter, breakwater, hydraulic model, beach, circulation, waves, water deficit, precast concrete cylinders.

scholarly journals How do designers generate new ideas? Design heuristics across two disciplines

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seda Yilmaz ◽  
Shanna R. Daly ◽  
Colleen M. Seifert ◽  
Richard Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Heuristics ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Industrial Designers ◽  
Protocol Study ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Design Heuristic

Research supports the central role cognitive strategies can play in successful concept generation by individual designers. Design heuristics have been shown to facilitate the creation of new design concepts in the early, conceptual stage of the design process, as well as throughout the development of ideas. However, we know relatively little about their use in differing disciplines. This study examined evidence of design heuristic use in a protocol study with 12 mechanical engineers and 12 industrial designers who worked individually to develop multiple concepts. The open-ended design problem was for a novel product, and the designers’ sketches and comments were recorded as they worked on the problem for 25 min and in a retrospective interview. The results showed frequent use of design heuristics in both disciplines and a significant relationship to the rated creativity of the concepts. Though industrial designers used more heuristics in their concepts, there was a high degree of similarity in heuristic use. Some differences between design disciplines were observed in the choice of design heuristics, where industrial designers showed a greater emphasis on user experience, environmental contexts, and added features. These findings demonstrate the prevalence of design heuristics in individual concept generation and their effectiveness in generating creative concepts, across two design domains.

A Knowledge Extraction and Design Support System for Supporting Industrial and Product Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
W. B. Lee ◽  
W. M. Wang ◽  
C. F. Cheung ◽  
Z. H. Wu
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Support System ◽  
Knowledge Extraction ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Support ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Design Support System ◽  
Design Ideas

Industrial and product design involves a lot of unstructured information for the generation of innovative product design ideas. However, the generation of innovative design concepts is not only time consuming but also heavily relies on the experience of product designers. Most existing systems focus mainly on the technical aspects of realizing product designs, which are inadequate to support concept generation process at the pre-design stage. In this paper, a knowledge extraction and design support system (KEDSS) is presented. The system aims at extracting key design concepts and depicting the trends of these concepts from the massive amount of unstructured design information in the open domain. A summary report, a related concept list, and concept trend graphs are produced based on the inputs of the designers' design ideas. A series of experiments have been conducted to measure the performance of the system. Moreover, the system has been successfully trial implemented as part of a public service platform for modern industrial design of injection molding machinery and equipment.

Evolving a Functional Basis for Engineering Design

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie M. Hirtz ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams ◽  
Simon Szykman ◽  
Kristin L. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Direct Method ◽  
Product Modeling ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Functional Modeling ◽  
Independent Research ◽  
Design Synthesis ◽  
Functional Basis ◽  
Functional Representations ◽  
Set Function ◽  
General Product

Abstract All products and artifacts are designed for a purpose. There is some intended reason behind their existence: the product or artifact function. Functional modeling provides an abstract, yet direct, method for understanding and representing an overall product or artifact function. Function modeling also provides a strategy for problem decomposition, physical modeling, product architecting, concept generation, and team organization. A formal function representation is needed to support function modeling, and a standardized set function-related terminology is necessary to achieve repeatable and meaningful results from such a representation. We refer to this representation as a functional basis; in this paper, we seek to reconcile and integrate two independent research efforts into a significantly evolved functional basis. These efforts include research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and two U.S. universities, and their industrial partners. The overall approach for integrating the functional representations is developed, in addition to the final results. The integration process is discussed relative to differences, similarities, insights into the representations, and product validation. Based on the results, a more versatile and comprehensive design vocabulary is obtained. This vocabulary will greatly enhance and expand the frontiers of research in design repositories, product architecture, design synthesis, and general product modeling.

An I-Ching-TRIZ-Inspired Approach to Design Concept Generation

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duc Truong Pham ◽  
Huimin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Design Concept ◽  
Design Solution ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
I Ching ◽  
Innovative Design ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Aircraft Cabin ◽  
Design Specifications ◽  
Design Solutions

This paper presents a new approach to producing innovative design concepts. The proposed approach involves extending the inventive principles of TRIZ by integrating other TRIZ and TRIZ-inspired tools. The set of inventive principles is then structured according to a framework adapted from I-Ching and represented using TRIZ’s Behaviour-Entity (BE) formalism to which constraints have also been added. The adoption of the BE representation enables a reduction in the amount of repeated information in the inventive principles. A BE pair contains information on a design solution. A Behaviour-Entity-Constraint (BEC) triple additionally has information on constraints on the solution. The BEC representation thus facilitates the retrieval and generation of design solutions from design specifications. The paper uses the problem of laying out seats in an aircraft cabin to illustrate advantages of the proposed approach.

Design Concept Generation: A Hierarchical Coevolutionary Approach

2006 ◽  
Vol 129 (10) ◽  
pp. 1012-1022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Jin ◽  
Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Lead Time ◽  
Design Space Exploration ◽  
Initial Population ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Support Tools ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Function Structures

As design problems become more complex and design lead time more pressing, designers need effective support tools to expand their design space exploration. In this paper, a hierarchical coevolutionary approach is proposed to support designers by automatically generating design concepts based on the designers’ inputs. The approach adopts a zigzag design process in which function structures and their corresponding solution principles coevolve in parallel across different levels of an abstraction hierarchy. A grammar-based approach is applied to decompose higher-level functions and generate an initial population of function structures. From this initial population, a coevolutionary algorithm is devised to coevolve more function structures and their corresponding solution principles. A case study of designing a mechanical personal transporter is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and features of the proposed approach.

The Part Count Tool (PACT) for Concept Selection

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarang Parashar ◽  
Katie Grantham Lough ◽  
Robert B. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Manufacturing Cost ◽  
Design Phase ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Product Concept ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Component Type ◽  
The Cost

This paper presents a part count tool that automates the consideration of manufacturing cost during the conceptual design phase by predicting part count for a particular product concept. With an approximate number of parts per product in the conceptual design phase, the designer can estimate the cost associated with the product. On the basis of the cost, the designer can make changes according to budget requirements. The part count tool will also aid in ranking the design concepts by number of components for a product. This tool utilizes existing automated concept generation algorithms to generate the design concepts. It extracts the available data from the Missouri S&T Design Repository to compute an average number of parts per component type in the repository and then calculates an average part count for new concepts. This data can subsequently be used by designers to estimate product cost. The part count tool also uses an algorithm to determine how to connect two non compatible components through the addition of mutually compatible components. While emphasis is placed on the average parts per product in evaluating designs, the overall functional requirement of the product is also considered.

Informing Early Design via Crowd-Based Co-Creation

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devarajan Ramanujan ◽  
Vinayak ◽  
Yash Nawal ◽  
Tahira Reid ◽  
Karthik Ramani
Keyword(s):  
Main Idea ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Early Design ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Computer Mouse ◽  
Design Attributes ◽  
Design Requirements ◽  
And Function

Customer inputs in the early stages of design can potentially lead to completely new outlooks in concept generation. We propose crowd-based co-creation as a means to this end. Our main idea is to think of the customer as a source of initial design concepts rather than a means for obtaining preferences towards designer-generated concepts. For analyzing a large collection of customer-created prototypes, we develop a framework that focuses on generating hypotheses related to customer perception of design attributes. We demonstrate our approach through a web interface to gather design requirements for a computer mouse, a bicycle seat, a pen holder, and a cola bottle. This interface was used in a crowdsourcing study with 253 users who represented potential end users for these products. Results from this study show that web-based co-creation allows designers to capture a variety of form and function-related design requirements from user-created virtual prototypes. We also found that such studies can be instrumental in identifying innovative product concepts, and gaining insights about how user perception correlates with product form. Therefore, we make the case that customer creation through distributed co-creation platforms can reinforce concept exploration in future early design processes.

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