Constraint-based conceptual design using principle solution elements

Abstract: The design of new products is an important engineering activity, and much of the competitiveness in high-salary countries depends on the ability to develop innovative products with acceptable time to market.During conceptual design, the principle solution for a product is conceived. This early phase of a systematic design process is of great importance for the later success of products. Available design support tools are mainly oriented towards the later phase of embodiment design (e.g. volume modellers), and they do not effectively support conceptual design. This work presents an information model, methods, and a tool for computer-supported conceptual design.During conceptual design, creative steps and the modelling of function structures, hierarchies, solution principles and concepts must be supported in order to reduce the considerable time needed by systematic design methods.Literature as well as existing research prototypes have been analysed to determine the state of the art in research regarding computer-supported conceptual design. Design projects of master's degree engineering students, previously carried-out at the division, have been studied in order to gain insight into the needs and possibilities of supporting concept generation for various design tasks.The work has resulted in a parametric, feature-based information model that is able to describe concepts as choices of principle solution elements and their quantification by value assignments. The model operates on a higher semantic level than for example document or model files by applying a constraint network that connects parameters of requirements, function structure, F/M tree, solution principles and concepts. The model has been tailored towards easy exchangeability of principle solution elements by a division into different constraint types, of which internal constraints are directly reusable. Using the model, the co-evolution of concept synthesisand early calculations is facilitated.The presented information model has been implemented in a prototype of an interactive tool for computer-supported conceptual design. The tool includes a graphical user interface for work with views for function structures and F/M trees. Reuse is enabled by storing and re-inserting principle solution elements from a database.