Chapter 1 - Integrated Material, Product, and Process Design—A New Frontier in Engineering Systems Design

Abstract

This chapter focuses on various aspects of systems-based concurrent design of materials and products. Design has been defined by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) as a process by which products, processes, and systems are created to perform desired functions through specification. The fundamental objective in a design process is to transform requirements—generally termed “functions,” which embody the expectations of the purposes of the resulting artifact, into design descriptions. The chapter describes the systems-based multilevel design that involves accounting for all aspects of systems from lower length and time scales to higher scales, addressing the multiscale nature of physical structure and behavior. The design process is multilevel in the sense that decisions must be made with respect to structure at each level of material and product hierarchies. Multiple levels of models must be integrated with design decisions in concurrent materials/product design. The design process is multiscale in the sense that multiple length and time scales of material structure and responses are addressed by different models. Multilevel design seeks to make risk-informed design decisions at all scales. Design has traditionally involved selecting a suitable material for a given application. The key element in tailoring these materials is a quantitative understanding of the relation of process route to microstructure, structure to properties, and properties to performance.