Conceptual Engineering Design Research Articles

Artificial intelligence in tasks of teaching students calculations and design of metal structures.

Various applications of artificial intelligence for design tasks and modeling of metal structures are being explored. Options for integrating artificial intelligence tools into calculations and principles of designing metal structures are considered. It is demonstrated that the integration of artificial intelligence technologies can both enhance students' understanding of engineering design concepts and structural analysis and lead to errors or misinterpretation of results. Directions for improving the outcomes of solving engineering tasks using artificial intelligence are discussed.

Exploring the Manifestation of Design for Manufacturing Heuristics in Students' Early-Stage Engineering Design Concepts

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) can produce designs in a manner that greatly differs from the methods used in the older, more familiar technologies of traditional manufacturing (TM). Despite this method of manufacturing designs that were seemingly inconceivable in the past, designers often forgo the new design considerations of AM and instead rely on their familiarity with the design considerations more commonly associated with TM, regardless of the manufacturing process they intend to use. This can lead to unnecessary material usage, increased manufacturing time, and can result in designs which are poorly manufactured. To remedy this problem, there is a need to intervene early in the design process to help address any concerns regarding the use of AM design heuristics. This work aims to address this opportunity through a preliminary exploration of the design heuristics that students naturally leverage when creating designs in the context of TM and AM. With the common design heuristics that students are most likely to use in their designs identified, future studies will cement early-stage design support tools that emphasize the significant heuristics found herein. For example, this work found that the design heuristic “incorporating complexity” was the most significant indicator of designs most suited for AM and should therefore be highly encouraged/emphasized when guiding designers in the use of AM. In doing so, it will be possible for early-stage design support tools to maximally improve designs that are intended to be manufactured for AM.

An efficient multi-fidelity simulation approach for performance prediction of adaptive cycle engines

Adaptive cycle engine (ACE) with multi-stream, modulated bypass ratio, and high-thrust/high-efficiency mode provides the capability of multiple mission adaptation for the next-generation aviation propulsion system. The low-fidelity zero-dimensional (0D) performance simulation method is commonly adopted in conventional engines such as turbofan and turbojet. However, it is hard to accommodate well to ACE with complex variable geometry schemes and strong interaction between components. This paper presents an efficient multi-fidelity simulation approach, often referred to as component zooming, for predicting the performance of ACE with the three-stream configuration. The one-dimensional (1D) mean-line models of the adaptive fan and low-pressure turbine (LPT) are integrated into the 0D ACE model by the iteratively-coupled method. The performance predicted by the multi-fidelity ACE models with different component zooming strategies is compared. The maximum deviations of thrust, specific fuel consumption, turbine inlet temperature, and bypass ratio between the 0D/1D Adaptive Fan/1D LPT coupled model and 0D ACE model are −10.8%, −4.4%, −5.4% (−75 K), and 1.6%, respectively, which are considerable and non-negligible for the application in the design stage of ACE. The computing time of all the multi-fidelity models is less than 2 minutes. The effects of the key aerodynamic parameters of the adaptive fan and LPT on the engine performance are also evaluated. The proposed approach provides a generic and efficient solution for multi-fidelity ACE performance prediction with acceptable computing resource requirements and time cost, which is applicable in the engine conceptual and preliminary design stage.

Paper or Tablet? The Impact of Digital Tools on Sketching During Engineering Design Concept Generation

Abstract Sketching is an important tool for engineers during concept generation. Sketch quantity during this early stage of design has been linked with eventual design outcomes and sketch quality has been linked with design perceptions. As such, both are important metrics to track. Prior work has also found gender differences in some of these sketch attributes, and considering gender imbalances in the field, it is important to assess whether there are differences in performance by gender during concept generation and if the use of digital tools exacerbate or mitigate any of these potential differences in performance by gender. Given the increase in use of digital tablets for sketching, it is important to assess how tablet use affects early stage engineering design sketches. This is especially important as tablets can automatically smooth lines and help perfect sketch features, but these features may also take longer to use and may result in fewer sketches produced. This study investigates differences in sketch quality, quantity, and understandability (the effectiveness of the sketch as a communication tool) between sketching on a tablet and sketching with pen on paper during an engineering design concept generation exercise. Results indicate that there is no difference in sketch quantity or understandability between the two tools. However, sketch quality, smoothness, and proportion/accuracy are all higher for the pen and paper condition than for the tablet condition. Finally, no gender differences in performance for either sketch quantity or quality were found.

Detail Engineering Design (DED) pada Struktur New Siloam Hospital Surabaya

The construction of health facilities is part of national development. Therefore, many health facility development projects, such as hospitals, continue to be carried out in various regions. One of them is the construction of the New Siloam Hospital in Surabaya. This article aims to understand the concept of detail engineering design on the building structure of New Siloam Hospital. Field surveys and data collection are the methods used to obtain information related to hospital construction projects. There are several differences between field data and work drawing data that has been created. Some of these differences include details on the reinforcement and casting volume. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out further evaluation of field data with work drawing data so that the project can proceed according to initial planning.

The integrated engineering design concept of the upper limiter within the EU-DEMO LIMITER system

The EU-DEMO first wall protection relies on a system of limiters. Although they are primarily designed for facing the energy released by a limited plasma during transients, their design should safely withstand a combination of loads relevant for in-vessel components (IVCs) during steady-state operation. They are not meant to breed tritium, nor to provide plasma stability. However, sitting in place of blanket portions, they should ensure an adequate shielding function to vacuum vessel and magnets while withstanding both their dead weight and the electro-mechanical loads arising from the interaction between current induced in the conductive structure and magnetic field. During plasma disruptions they will be subjected to halo currents flowing from/to the plasma and the grounded structures, whose effects must be added to the eddy current ones. Disruption-induced electro-mechanical loads are hence IVC design-driving, despite the uncertainties in both eddy and halo currents’ magnitude and distribution, which depend on IVC design, electrical connectivity, plasma temperature and halo width.The integrated design of the limiter is made of two actively water-cooled sub-components: the Plasma-Facing Wall (PFW) directly exposed to the plasma, and the Shielding Block (SB) devoted to hold the PFW while providing neutronic shielding. The PFW design is driven by disruptive heat loads. Disruption-induced electro-magnetic loads are instead SB design drivers, meaning that the design details (i.e. geometry, electrical connections, attachments) affect the loads acting on it, which, in turn, are affected by the mechanical response of the structure.The present paper describes the design workflow and assessment of the Upper Limiter (UL), resulting from a close and iterative synergy among different fields. Built on static-structural and energy balance hand calculations based on, respectively, preliminary electro-magnetic and neutronic loads, the UL integrated design performance has then been verified against electro-magnetic, neutronic, thermal-hydraulic and structural assessment under the above-mentioned load combination. The outcome will be taken as reference for future limiter engineering designs.

Sensitivity analysis for MHD bionanofluid slip flow model in fluid-permeable plate

Diagnostic and therapeutic purpose on human healthcare is moving to a trend of combined engineering principles and design concepts. It is therefore beneficial to refine the study on thermodynamic properties of bionanofluid towards a better state of diagnoses and treatments. This paper aims to determine the characteristics of a magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) bionanofluid slip flow model in a fluid-permeable plate. A Buongiorno mathematical model describing steady two-dimensional MHD bionanofluid slip flow across a permeable plate is constructed. Numerical analysis by shooting technique and sensitivity analysis under the principle of RSM is configured to determine the correlation between input parameters and output responses. The relationship between the four parameters of interest namely skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number, local Sherwood number and local density of motile microorganism with respective velocity, temperature, nanoparticle concentration and microorganism density distributions to the selected input parameters are investigated. Skin friction coefficient and local density of motile microorganism increase with suction and Schmidt number respectively, signifying positive sensitivity. Local Sherwood number is conditionally more sensitive to Brownian motion parameter or else Lewis number. While, local Nusselt number is always gaining negative sensitivity from Lewis number, thermophoresis and Brownian motion parameters. Extensive numerical studies on boundary layer problem have been done; yet this is the first study invoking sensitivity analysis to discuss the sensitivity of parameters of interest to the input thermophysical parameters.

The Influence of Digital Sketching Tools on Concept Novelty and Evolution

Abstract Digital tools for sketching, such as tablets, have become popular for streamlining design work and keeping a large quantity of sketches in one place. However, their impact on design creativity, novelty, and concept evolution is not yet well understood. Here, we present a controlled human subjects study that assesses the influence of tablets (iPads) on concept novelty and evolution in the context of an engineering design concept generation exercise. We expect that iPad use will not influence concept novelty due to its similar speed of use as pen and paper sketching. We expect to see different patterns in concept evolution between the two types of tools, namely, that iPad users will demonstrate more iteration on a concept (concept evolution) than pen and paper users due to the fact that iPad features make it easy to copy and paste previous sketches and then modify them. We find that the tool used is not correlated with concept novelty. Additionally, we find no strong differences in overall concept evolution quantities between the two tools, though we see that iPad sketches exhibited more cases of consecutive concept evolution than nonconsecutive whereas paper and pen sketches showed an equal amount of both consecutive and nonconsecutive concept evolution. Results indicate that overall, iPads may not significantly inhibit designers’ creative skills and thus could be a reasonable replacement for pen and paper sketching, which has implications for both design education and practice.

Elementary science teachers’ engineering integration after long-term in-service training program with and without curriculum material support

ABSTRACT Background and Purpose As a response to the need for effective engineering integration in K-12 science classrooms, teachers should be supported with rich professional development (PD) with diverse components (e.g. curriculum material support). Grounded in the framework for quality K-12 engineering education, this study explores how elementary science teachers integrated engineering into science lessons after participating in PD and the nature of engineering integration with additional curriculum material support (CMS). Design/Method In this single-case study with multiple embedded units of analysis, three teachers’ 79 classroom video recordings were analyzed using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Engineering Design with the engineering design process and engineering habits of mind components. Findings Analysis showed that teachers spent time on each design component in both PD Year and CMS Year, with an increase for at least half of the components in the CMS Year. Across all the observations in both years, the most common engineering design process component was researching possible solutions to the engineering challenge. Compared to the PD Year, teachers’ engineering habits of mind integration improved greatly in the CMS Year. Regarding engineering design and science concepts integration, observations became more balanced, moving away from the independent ends of the continuum in the CMS Year. Conclusions Long-term PD was effective in supporting teachers’ integration of engineering design components. Providing CMS had the greatest impact on the integration of engineering habits of mind components. Along with PD, curriculum support with explicit indication of how and when to incorporate engineering with habits of mind components was beneficial for teachers.

Waste Management Problems on Bawean Island, Indonesia

The policy on waste management in Gresik Regency is not implemented in Bawean Island, which is part of the Gresik Regency area. The absence of Temporary Processing Sites (TPS) and Final Processing Sites (TPA) has made the waste problem more widespread which has an impact on people's lives on Bawean Island. The purpose of this research is to find out the problems in waste management on Bawean Island. Qualitative research methods were used to explore the problems of waste management policy on Bawean Island through interviews, observation, and also documentation at the Gresik Regency Environmental Service and Community Leaders on Bawean Island by selecting subjects using purposive sampling. The results of the study found that the non-implementation of policies regarding waste management in Gresik Regency on Bawean Island was due to budget being the main problem for implementing waste management policies on Bawean Island. Then the government's lack of readiness in managing waste on Bawean Island, such as the lack of a Detailed Engineering Design (DED) concept, facilities and infrastructure in waste management, and outreach to the people of Bawean Island.

High-entropy transition metal disulfide colloid clusters: synergistic atomic scale interaction and interconnected network for ultra-stable potassium ion storage

High-entropy metal disulfide (HES2) colloid clusters were synthesized through a two-step templated solvothermal method for used as anode materials for potassium-ion storage devices. HES2’s large configuration entropy stabilizes its crystal structure and promotes chemical diversity by introducing multiple cations, thus reducing the impact of the shuttle effect, retaining active materials and extending cycling life up to 1800 cycles. During cycling, crystalline-amorphous grain boundaries formed in situ enhance electrochemical reaction activities and ensure the exposure of active sites. Elements with lower electronegativity allow S to bring more negative charges, improving the electrostatic force between S and K+ and enabling better anchoring of potassium polysulfide. Meanwhile, the retained close-packed cluster structure of HES2 provides a large contact area to accelerate the reduction reaction of the electrolyte in the sphere during the repeating K+ insertion/extraction. We further demonstrate the excellent performance of HES2 anodes on practical potassium-ion full battery and hybrid capacitor applications. The pioneering concept in atomic compositional engineering and structural design of transition metal sulfide electrodes presented in this work marks a significant step forward in the development of chalcogenide electrode systems for energy storage devices.

Purification of synthetic oils using liquefied gases of reduced flammability

In this work we evaluate the technical feasibility of using liquefied CO2 + propane as a solvent for the purification of lubricant oils. A model lubricant made of a silicone oil (polydimethylsiloxane, MW ≈6000) and Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5, MW: ≈371) is prepared to study the extraction process. The phase behavior of the CO2 +propane+silicone oil system is evaluated in a high-pressure view cell to set the window of operating conditions where the system exhibits partial liquid miscibility (298–323 K). Then, we add D5 monomer (2 mass % in the silicone oil) to the previous ternary mixture, and we assess the effect of solvent composition (CO2/propane: 60/40–90/10) over the fractionation process by means of new equilibrium measurements. The solvent-free distribution coefficient of D5 between the liquid phases is determined from experimental determinations. Results evidence that liquefied gases with propane concentrations between 10 and 26 mass % are suitable to remove the monomers from the raw lubricant oils with good selectivity and extraction yields. Conceptual engineering designs of the liquid-liquid fractionation process are performed to determine the suitable solvent composition that completely removes the monomer present in the lubricant oil and to assess the recovery of the lubricant oil.

Integrated simulation for the preconceptual optioneering of the STEP breeder blanket design

The UK Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program is currently progressing the conceptual engineering design of a Spherical Tokamak-based fusion reactor. The program includes a project concerned with design of the reactor breeding blanket. The objective of this work was to develop a low fidelity, integrated simulation approach to support preconceptual optioneering and exploration of the breeder blanket technologies design space. This simulation approach allowed for parameter sweeps of different Tokamak design points to take place by varying key inputs. The objective of the simulation approach is to enable designers to assess the impact of these parameters on blanket performance.This research resulted in development of a workflow internally within the project team and externally through a design service contract. A variety of tools were integrated into a modelling framework including a bill of materials-like object orientated data structure, open-source Tokamak neutronics workflow, and parametric blanket geometry tools capable of outputting material volume fractions and flow layouts. The research concluded with results produced from the integrated simulation feeding into a wider qualitative assessment of blanket technologies for chosen Tokamak design points and with further development of the workflow.

Adapting a Narrative Curriculum to a Remote Format in the Context of Socially Distanced Middle School Education Resulting from COVID-19

This paper describes the development of two versions of an NGSS-aligned principles of engineering design unit for use in middle schools. By employing a narrative framework that can help students to connect more deeply with the human contexts and consequences of the engineering design process, our goal was to enhance students’ cognitive and emotional engagement in the learning of engineering design concepts. We first detail the design of an initial version of the unit, titled The Survivorama, which used narrative to enrich a primarily traditional, in-person teaching approach. We then describe the adapted version of the unit, titled the Molasses Disaster, and the modifications we made to the stories and transmedia story elements that facilitated the creation of a fully remote version of the unit. To investigate questions related to the effectiveness of the remote curriculum in sustaining student engagement in the remote context, we carried out a mixed-methods study that looked at (1) teachers’ characterizations of the effect of the curriculum on student engagement and (2) student learning outcomes as measured by performance assessment tasks. Qualitative analysis of teacher interviews supported the notion that teachers found both versions of the curriculum to be highly engaging for their students, though with some important caveats regarding younger students and students who were less literate. Quantitative analysis comparing 2019 and 2020 student response data for students in the 2019 nontreatment, 2019 treatment, and 2020 treatment groups found statistically significant differences in the pattern of responses for both problem-solving and conceptual drawing performance assessment tasks. The pattern of responses supported the inference that student engagement was similar for students in both the 2019 in-person context and the 2020 remote context, and that both differed significantly from the 2019 nontreatment group.

Exploring the intersection of biology and design for product innovations

Design, development, productization, and applications of advanced product concepts are pressing for higher multifunctionality, resilience, and maximization of available resources equitably to meet the growing and continuing demands of global customers. These demands have further accelerated during the recent COVID-19 pandemic and are continuing to be a challenge. Engineering designs are one of the most effective ways to endow products with functions, resilience, and sustainability. Biology, through millions of years of evolution, has met these acute requirements under severe resource and environmental constraints. As the manufacturing of products is reaching the fundamental limits of raw materials, labor, and resource constraints in terms of availability, accessibility, and affordability, new approaches are a call to action to meet these challenges. Understanding the designs in biology is an attractive, novel, and desired frontier for learning and implementation to meet this call to action. This is the focus of the paper discussed through examples for convergence of fundamental engineering design concepts and the lessons learned and applied from biology.

Distributed representation learning and intelligent retrieval of knowledge concepts for conceptual design

Data-driven conceptual design is rapidly emerging as a powerful approach to generate novel and meaningful ideas by leveraging external knowledge especially in the early design phase. Currently, most existing studies focus on the identification and exploration of design knowledge by either using common-sense or building specific-domain ontology databases and semantic networks. However, the overwhelming majority of engineering knowledge is published as highly unstructured and heterogeneous texts, which presents two main challenges for modern conceptual design: (a) how to capture the highly contextual and complex knowledge relationships, (b) how to efficiently retrieve of meaningful and valuable implicit knowledge associations. To this end, in this work, we propose a new data-driven conceptual design approach to represent and retrieve cross-domain knowledge concepts for enhancing design ideation. Specifically, this methodology is divided into three parts. Firstly, engineering design knowledge from the massive body of scientific literature is efficiently learned as information-dense word embeddings, which can encode complex and diverse engineering knowledge concepts into a common distributed vector space. Secondly, we develop a novel semantic association metric to effectively quantify the strength of both explicit and implicit knowledge associations, which further guides the construction of a novel large-scale design knowledge semantic network (DKSN). The resulting DKSN can structure cross-domain engineering knowledge concepts into a weighted directed graph with interconnected nodes. Thirdly, to automatically explore both explicit and implicit knowledge associations of design queries, we further establish an intelligent retrieval framework by applying pathfinding algorithms on the DKSN. Next, the validation results on three benchmarks MTURK-771, TTR and MDEH demonstrate that our constructed DKSN can represent and associate engineering knowledge concepts better than existing state-of-the-art semantic networks. Eventually, two case studies show the effectiveness and practicality of our proposed approach in the real-world engineering conceptual design.

Space Engineering Design Concept for Installing a Spatial Heavy Crane to Ascend and Descend Payloads

Space Engineering Design Concept for Installing a Spatial Heavy Crane to Ascend and Descend Payloads

Research on Green Environmental Protection Concept in Environmental Protection Engineering Design

Research on Green Environmental Protection Concept in Environmental Protection Engineering Design

High Impact Practices and Collaborative Teaching to Enhance Learning and Engagement in Engineering Design Project Course

Conceptual teaching-learning process in engineering disciplines fosters a deep understanding of content and facts and leverages students' domain knowledge to solve real-world problems. Combined with high-impact practices and collaborative/joint teaching in Engineering Design Project (EDP), this process enables students to apply captured expertise and skills in team-based project settings. Many conventional instructional methods for EDP are less effective because little consideration is given to conceptual learning, especially abstract design. The present research examined an experimental approach, which involved collaborative teaching in the EDP course at an engineering college in India jointly with a faculty at one of the largest higher education systems in the United States. The project's fundamental goal is to enhance teaching-learning of EDP using experience with real-world problems to enable concrete understanding of Design techniques through a co-teaching approach. The conceptbased learning included team-based project experience in learning the Software Engineering Design concepts. Peer-Code Review was used as a powerful High Impact Practice (HIP) and student retrospective surveys. The empirical results of this study suggested that such HIPs and collaborative teaching-learning practices mandated Bloom’s taxonomy of more critical thinking at increasingly higher levels among students by improving the quality of learning. Further analysis of demographic survey questionnaire using descriptive statistical methods demonstrate the knowledge gain, attitudes, and interests of students from varied backgrounds to pursue higher studies in foreign universities. Keywords—High impact practices; International academic collaboration; Collaborative teaching; Engineering design project; Co-teaching; Peer code review

The reality and obstacles of implementing primary teachers with the engineering design in teaching science

The research aims to determine the science teachers' knowledge level in elementary schools about the engineering design concept. It determines the application level of engineering design among the science teachers at the elementary level in teaching science and highlights the obstacles faced in implementing these. The descriptive survey method was used to achieve the research aim by applying a questionnaire to a sample of 97 science teachers in primary schools in Riyadh city. The research was limited to the concepts of engineering design and engineering practices as mentioned in the next generation of NGSS science standards. It was found that science teachers were unaware of the importance of developing engineering design skills among students. It might be due to ineffective teachers' training in engineering design skills development. It is strongly suggested to educate supervisors about the importance of directing male and female teachers to apply engineering design in science teaching for the elementary stage. It is essential to provide appropriate educational laboratories and means for employing engineering design and teaching science for the elementary stage.