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An approach to functional synthesis of solutions in mechanical conceptual design. Part II: Kind synthesis

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Abstract

The three papers in this series describe an approach to the synthesis of solutions to a class of mechanical design problems; these involve transmission and transformation of mechanical forces and motion, and can be described by a set of inputs and outputs. The approach involves(1) identifying a set of primary functional elements and rules of combining them, and(2) developing appropriate representations and reasoning procedures for synthesizing solution concepts using these elements and their combination rules; these synthesis procedures can produce an exhaustive set of solution concepts, in terms of their topological as well as spatial configurations, to a given design problem.

This paper, Part II, describes a set of procedures, which, using a knowledge base of primary structures expressed in terms of the representation constructs developed in Part I, can exhaustively synthesize topological descriptions of possible solutions to a given problem.

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Chakrabarti, A., Bligh, T.P. An approach to functional synthesis of solutions in mechanical conceptual design. Part II: Kind synthesis. Research in Engineering Design 8, 52–62 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01616556

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