ACHIEVING THE SELECTION OF OPTIMAL PRESS BRAKE DESIGN VIA A FUZZY TOPSIS APPROACH

Abstract

Selecting optimal design concept from several design alternatives is still a major challenge for engineers in the field of engineering design and it is important to select the optimal design in order to avoid delay and unnecessary cost during project execution. This article presents the selection of optimal design of press brake considering several design requirements and features. The adoption of the fuzzy TOPSIS methodology considered various design features that are categorized into several sub-features and weighted considering the functional requirements from the optimal design. The cumulative Triangular Fuzzy Number (TFN) of the design alternatives from the sub-features of all the design features are harnessed to develop a decision matrix from which the fuzzy positive and negative ideal solutions are obtained. The distances of the design alternatives to the fuzzy positive and negative ideal solutions are determined in order to obtain a closeness coefficient that is used to rank the design alternatives. The proximity in the final values of the closeness coefficients of the design alternatives demonstrates that the fuzzy TOPSIS approach apportioned ratings to the design alternatives based on availability of sub-features in the design concepts and the relevance of the design features to the functional requirement of the optimal design.