Understanding design-manufacture interaction using compromise decision support problems—II. Preliminary synthesis of composite pressure vessels

Abstract

The decision support problem (DSP) technique is being developed to facilitate the concurrent implementation of design, manufacture and maintenance. This involves the development of a domain-independent method (and the associated software) that can be used to process domain-dependent information and thereby provide support for human judgment. Modeling and gaining an understanding of the interaction between design and manufacture is an important step in this development. A conceptual model of a process for design (for composite material pressure vessels) and the formulation of a ‘non-textbook’ compromise DSP template for modeling and understanding the issues involved in design manufacturing integration are reported in Part I of this paper. Here we present our observations after exercising the template for the preliminary synthesis of composite pressure vessels. The template is exercised thrice; the weights (priorities) associated with the different goals of the design are changed, the failure criteria used to evaluate the failure of the pressure vessel are changed and the template is modified to include reserve strength considerations. The method proposed to account for intact and reserve strength in the design process is unique and an effective means of including strength considerations in the evaluation of the overall technical efficiency of the system. The successful implementation of this template, in our opinion, provides a test problem to study and understand various issues associated with the development of design methods and provides the foundation from which to develop a template to help understand the interaction between design and manufacture. The focus in this paper is on the method and on understanding the subsequent ramifications; the focus is not on the designs which are obtained by solving the template.