Engineering design is the basis for technological advancement and the development of new products. Many changes have emerged over the last few decades due to scientific advancements, evolution in ...novel engineering materials, advances in computational technology, the opening up of the global village, economic constraints, short life spans of products, and the need for a responsive life cycle design paradigm in engineering products. To meet customer or operational requirements, a certain design methodology is used to design and develop products. This has resulted in notable growth in product design methodologies across disciplines, particularly architecture, engineering, and industrial designs. The engineering design methodology has addressed design procedures, epistemological issues, and working procedures in the design disciplines for several decades. In this article, the research seeks to delve into novel design methodologies currently in use and interrogate their limitations and advantages to create synergies among the best practices in engineering design approaches, with particular emphasis on responsiveness to continuously changing customer requirements. To achieve this, special emphasis will be placed on a design methodology for life cycle, end-of-life, concurrent engineering, eco-design, and reconfigurable design. Based on a strategic focus, the drive is for innovative engineering design that requires design approaches that respond to continuous product changes. The results from this study demonstrate the relationships between engineering design methodologies and solution models that respond to industry and customer requirements.
Most of the time, engineers focus on the design of physical products and on their interactions with others objects, and this is why technical services are not considered very early during the design ...process. On the other hand, some product-service system (PSS) methodologies still exist but are focused on the system and do not sufficiently specify engineering product criteria. Indeed, to achieve the development of consistent PSSs, a methodology is required to support engineering designers during the development process. PSSs are composed of physical objects and service units that relate each other. To have a competitive PSS, the designers must consider carefully and early in the design phase the interactions between those elements. The aim of the proposed methodology is to provide engineering designers with technical engineering specifications in relation with the whole system's requirements as precise as possible for the development of the physical objects involved in those systems. The paper describes the context of PSS development and the current methods used to develop such systems. Then, the tools and formalism used in the proposed methodology based on a function-oriented description and an activities related description are explained. Finally, an industrial example of a helium-based refrigeration unit illustrates the proposed methodology.
Partial paralysis caused by spinal cord injury (SCI) or stroke are two of the most prevalent forms of physical disability. Through proper gait training, people with incomplete SCI have more potential ...to retain or regain the ability to walk than those with complete SCI. To help patients who have these disabilities regain the function of walking unassisted, the robotic walking training device (RWTD) has been developed to perform gait rehabilitation. This research plays a pivotal role in advancing medical robotic technology and gait rehabilitation by conducting a comprehensive evaluation and comparison of three lift mechanisms. Specifically, the lift mechanisms are designed to reposition a patient, using the RWTD, from a supine to a vertical position. Addressing a crucial gap in supporting and placing patients in gait rehabilitation devices, design optimization was performed using the engineering design process. This approach utilizes sophisticated techniques, including CAD modeling, motion analysis, structural analysis using finite element analysis, and a Pugh decision matrix. The findings offer valuable insights for optimizing lift mechanisms for the RWTD, contributing to the enhancement of patient-centric care. This research ensures a focus on safety, efficiency, and comfort in the gait rehabilitation process, with broader implications for the evolution of medical robotic devices.
Nowadays, the script of life is for a large part written by architects and designers. Urban planning decides how we spread our activities geographical. The design of modern residential districts ...determines for a large part how we communicate with each other. The design of shopping centers determines how we acquire our food. Designers for means of transport decide how we move ourselves and kitchen designers decide how we cook. All this has to do with the mechanisms of technology diffusion which will be elaborated on in this publication. The main issues discussed are the contemporary interrelationship of industrial design and architecture and a confrontation of contemporary design practice in both domains with academic theory and education. The cases used for this publication provide several examples of the various characters of design processes. The subjects of the cases discussed in Design Processes are design processes in general, visualization as a design tool, project management, social complexity collaboration, decision making and technology diffusion.
Biological organisms, phenomena and strategies, herein referred to as biological systems, provide a rich set of analogies that can be used to inspire engineering innovation. Biologically-inspired, or ...biomimetic, designs are publicly viewed as creative and novel solutions to human problems. Moreover, some biomimetic designs have become so commonplace that it is hard to image life without them (e.g. velcro, airplanes). Although the biologically- inspired solutions are innovative and useful, the majority of inspiration taken from nature has happened by chance observation, dedicated study of a specific biological entity (e.g., gecko), or asking a biologist to explain the biology in simple terms. This reveals a fundamental problem of working across the engineering and biological domains. The effort and time required to become a competent engineering designer creates significant obstacles to becoming sufficiently knowledgeable about biological systems (the converse can also be said). This research aims to remove the element of chance, reduce the amount of time and effort required to developing biologically-inspired solutions, and bridge the seemingly immense disconnect between the engineering and biological domains.
To facilitate systematic biologically-inspired design, a design methodology that relies on a framework of tools and techniques that bridge the two domains is established. The design tools and techniques that comprise the framework achieve: Identification of relevant biological solutions based on function; translation of identified biological systems of interest; functional representation of biological information such that it can be used for engineering design activities; and conceptualization of biomimetic engineering designs. Using functional representation and abstraction to describe biological systems presents the natural designs in an engineering context and allows designers to make connections between biological and engineered systems. Thus, the biological information is accessible to engineering designers with varying biological knowledge, but a common understanding of engineering design methodologies. This work has demonstrated the feasibility of using systematic design for the discovery of innovative engineering designs without requiring expert-level knowledge, but rather broad knowledge of many fields.
Graduation date: 2011
PDF