Abstract
Usually, there are many solutions to a design problem; therefore, there is scope for producing improved designs if one could explore a large solution space widely. An approach would be to use the computer to synthesise a wide variety of concepts for a given problem, and allow designers to explore these before developing the most promising ones. Adopting a research approach based on developing basic representations, knowledge base and reasoning procedures adequate for synthesising concepts of existing devices and mechanisms, a computer program for synthesising solutions to a class of mechanical design problems has been developed. For a given design problem, the program can produce an exhaustive set of solution concepts, in terms of their topological, spatial and generic physical configurations, which can then be explored by designers. In order to aid designers in the exploration process, an approach for clustering and browsing these concepts has been developed. The program has been tested for its ability to: (1) generate existing as well as innovative ideas of solutions at the various levels; (2) cluster these ideas using measures of similarity used by designers and the difference this makes to the quality of solution space exploration.
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Chakrabarti, A., Langdon, P., Liu, YC., Bligh, T.P. (2002). An approach to compositional synthesis of mechanical design concepts using computers. In: Chakrabarti, A. (eds) Engineering Design Synthesis. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3717-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3717-7_11
Publisher Name: Springer, London
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