Concurrent Design

Abstract

Given the initial functional specifications for a product, a designer must create the description of a physical device that meets those requirements. The final design must simultaneously meet cost and quality requirements as well as meet the constraints imposed by activities such as manufacturing, assembly, and maintenance. Mechaanical designs are often composed of highly-integrated, tightly-coupled components where the interactions are essential to the behaviour and economic execution of the design. Therefore, concurrent rather than sequential consideration of requirements, such as structural, thermal, and manufacturing constraints, will result in superior designs. Our goal is to create a computer-based design system that will enable a designer to concurrently consider the interactions and trade-offs among different, and even conflicting, requirements. We are creating a system that surrounds the designer with experts and advisors that provide continuous feedback based on incremental analysis of the design as it evolves. The experts and advisors, called perspectives, can generate comments on the design (e.g. comments on its manufacturability), information that becomes part of the design (e.g. stresses), and portions of the geometry (e.g. the shape of an airfoil). However, the perspectives are not just a sophisticated toolbox for the designers; rather they are a group of advisors who interact with one another and with the designer. This paper focuses on the motivation and integration of the research that has resulted from the multi-disciplinary group creating this design system, called Design Fusion. The research falls into broad areas: geometric modeling, features, constraints, and system architecture.