INTEGRATED MODELLING OF CONCEPT SYNTHESIS AND EARLY CALCULATIONS USING EXCHANGEABLE PRINCIPLE SOLUTION ELEMENTS
DS 32: Proceedings of DESIGN 2004, the 8th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia
Year: 2004
Editor: Marjanovic D.
Author: Wilhelms, S.
Section: DESIGN INFORMATION SYSTEMS & KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Page(s): 959 - 964
Abstract
In conceptual design, concepts are synthesised and their essential properties determined quantitatively. The ability to quickly change solution elements facilitates exploring the solution space and reaching the best qualitative principle solutions. This article presents a parametric support for integrating qualitative concept synthesis and early calculations using function/means tree and a parallel constraint network. The focus is on how principle solution elements should be modelled in order to facilitate easy exchangeability of their quantitative models. A strategy and methods for principle solution elements permitting to be changed by a single operation and no additional manual corrections are presented.
Keywords: Product modelling, synthesis, computer supported conceptual design, functional modelling, constraint based design