A digital expression method for the module interface in a practical bus chassis modular design and case history

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Modular design of products can effectively reduce product development cycle with the idea of concurrent engineering, the efficient management of module interface information in the design process is the premise and foundation for module sharing. This study aims to develop a methodology for interface information management in bus chassis modular design. The characteristics of module interfaces in mechanical design are first investigated by the comparison with Universal Serial Bus interfaces. A digital expression method is then proposed to describe the characteristics of interface geometry information using two matrices with mapping relationships. An encoding method is then developed for the interface information management in modular design. Finally, the implementation of the above method was illustrated with a case study of an electric bus chassis modular design. The results indicate that the digital expression method can represent the geometric information of the module interface precisely and provide a good foundation for the establishment of the modules database for the bus chassis. Novelty of the research is to provide a methodology to represent the characteristics of interface in mechanical design through digital expression.