Automatically Synthesizing Principle Solutions in Multi-Disciplinary Conceptual Design With Functional and Structural Knowledge

Abstract

Synthesizing principle solutions (PSs) in various disciplines together is a common practice in multi-disciplinary conceptual design (MDCD), which generates the combination of PSs to meet the desired functional requirement. Different from structure- and function-based synthesis methods, a hybrid PS synthesis (HPSS) method through integrating functional and structural knowledge is proposed in this paper, which not only achieves the automated synthesis of multi-disciplinary PSs, but also resolves the undesired physical conflicts during the synthesis process. It comprises of united representation approach for modeling functional and structural knowledge of multi-disciplinary PSs, adapted agent-based approach for chaining the specified functional flows of PSs, and the extension conflict resolve approach for handling the partial design conflicts among selected PSs. An industrial case study on the emergency cutting off (ECO) device design was given to validate the applicability of HPSS, and it indicates that HPSS can not only get multi-disciplinary design result of ECO device, but also further resolve the design conflict (i.e., vibration impact) to optimize the functional structure of ECO device.