Grammatical approaches to engineering design, part II: Melding configuration and parametric design using attribute grammars

Abstract

Parametric design tools are applicable in engineering design when the configuration is known a priori. Grammatical approaches to design, on the other hand, are useful for considering a range of configurations but do not accommodate the consideration of engineering parameters and design requirements. We discussattribute grammars, which were developed for the semantic analysis of computer languages, and show how engineering design can be facilitated by modest extensions of the attribute grammar formalism. We demonstrate with examples how a component-based design artifact language can be augmented with engineering parameters and how such a language can be parsed to evaluate conformance with design requirements. We also demonstrate how grammatical attributes can be used to represent design requirements and can direct the generation of design alternatives.