Educational tool based on a morphological matrix for design alternative generation for use in railway wagon design

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, undergraduate railway engineering education has been on the rise in Brazil. However, a long period without investments in the sector led to the absence of up-to-date material in Portuguese to back up the teaching of specific courses in the program. To help bring the program up to speed, this work presents the development of a wagon design support tool, based on the principles of the design methodology process. The proposed tool combines data from the national railway sector with classic tools such as functional modeling and the morphological matrix. As the result, an instrument that directs the student to a more realistic solution for the design possibilities is presented to support wagon design. One of the observed benefits is the focus shift from the search to the analysis of the technical possibilities arising from using the working principles presented.