Function-Behavior-Structure Model Research Articles

Towards Controllable Generative Design: A Conceptual Design Generation Approach Leveraging the FBS Ontology and Large Language Models

Abstract Recent research in the field of design engineering is primarily focusing on using AI technologies such as Large Language Models (LLMs) to assist early-stage design. The engineer or designer can use LLMs to explore, validate and compare thousands of generated conceptual stimuli and make final choices. This was seen as a significant stride in advancing the status of the generative approach in computer-aided design. However, it is often difficult to instruct LLMs to obtain novel conceptual solutions and requirement-compliant in real design tasks, due to the lack of transparency and insufficient controllability of LLMs. This study presents an approach to leverage LLMs to infer Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) ontology for high-quality design concepts. Prompting design based on the FBS model decomposes the design task into three sub-tasks including functional, behavioral, and structural reasoning. In each sub-task, prompting templates and specification signifiers are specified to guide the LLMs to generate concepts. User can determine the selected concepts by judging and evaluating the generated function-structure pairs. A comparative experiment has been conducted to evaluate the concept generation approach. According to the concept evaluation results, our approach achieves the highest scores in concept evaluation, and the generated concepts are more novel, useful, functional, and low-cost compared to the baseline.

A constraint-driven conceptual design approach for product based on function-behavior-structure design process

Conceptual design is an important part of new product development (NPD) since it relies on performance, quality, and cost restrictions from users during the design process, and it has a direct impact on downstream design activities. However, in the function-behavior-structure (FBS) design model, constraints are only frequently used in the scheme evaluation or detailed optimization stage, ignoring the influence of various constraints in the function solution process, which leads to repeated revisions of design schemes. In addition, the expression of constraints in NPD is focused on the abstraction of qualitative requirements, and there is no regular classification and definition. Aiming at the above defects, a constraint-driven product conceptual design model based on FBS model is proposed. First, a constraint-driven FBS conceptual design model is proposed as an important theoretical basis for subsequent design. Second, FBS mapping is driven by constraints, and function-behavior association matrix under functional constraints and behavior-structure association matrix under behavioral constraints are established to obtain feasible principle solutions. Third, the principle solutions are combined according to the compatibility constraints, and the constraint evaluation criteria are integrated with the technology for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) to obtain the optimal conceptual scheme (CS). To aid the design process, a prototype solving CSs based on design constraints system is developed to assist designers to manage constraints and improve evaluation efficiency. Finally, a case study of the high-speed blender scheme is used to validate the proposed approach and the optimal CS driving by constraint is solved, then the compared results and prototype system showed the applicability of the proposed approach.

Design and Evaluation of the Extended FBS Model Based Gaze-Control Power Wheelchair for Individuals Facing Manual Control Challenges.

This study addresses the challenges faced by individuals with upper limb disadvantages in operating power wheelchair joysticks by utilizing the extended Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) model to identify design requirements for an alternative wheelchair control system. A gaze-controlled wheelchair system is proposed based on design requirements from the extended FBS model and prioritized using the MosCow method. This innovative system relies on the user's natural gaze and comprises three levels: perception, decision making, and execution. The perception layer senses and acquires information from the environment, including user eye movements and driving context. The decision-making layer processes this information to determine the user's intended direction, while the execution layer controls the wheelchair's movement accordingly. The system's effectiveness was validated through indoor field testing, with an average driving drift of less than 20 cm for participates. Additionally, the user experience scale revealed overall positive user experiences and perceptions of the system's usability, ease of use, and satisfaction.

A design model of FBS based on interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy sets

The FBS (Function-Behaviour-Structure) model is a research model that stimulates creative thinking of designers in the design process. In order to reduce the influence of user requirement ambiguity on design results in the product design process and improve the accuracy of user requirements in the function-behavior-structure (FBS) design model, this paper proposes an interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy set-based FBS model integrating AHP and HOQ methods. Firstly, the design model will use IVPF-AHP method to study user requirements and use interval-valued Pythagorean linguistic terms to replace the traditional scoring method of AHP to get the weight of each user requirement. Secondly, the conversion between user requirements and functions will be realized by IVPF-HOQ method, which converts customer requirements into functional characteristics and calculates the weights of each functional characteristic. Finally, the design focus will be filtered according to the order of importance of the functional characteristics, which will be used as functions to guide the development of the FBS model. In this paper, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method will be verified by an application example of a hand-held fluorescence spectrometer. The results show that the proposed FBS model can effectively reduce the subjectivity and ambiguity in the decision-making process, improve the accuracy and information richness of user requirements, and effectively highlight the focus of the design study. The innovation of the proposed method is to provide a more objective and accurate innovative design method for user requirements through the integration of AHP, HOQ and FBS to effectively explore and analyze user requirements. The use of IVPFS to deal with fuzzy information in the design process in a more flexible manner can reduce the ambiguity of requirements when user data is small, and effectively improve the limitations of the FBS design model which is more subjective.

Investigating the multilevel logic in design solutions: a Function Behaviour Structure (FBS) analysis

One of the reasons why Function Behaviour Structure (FBS) model did not become a pragmatic tool in industrial practice is its inability to push the designer to develop solutions beyond the dimensional scale where components, materials, and their relationships, of an artifact are defined. This paper introduces the concept of “topology” into the FBS model to support design in a multidimensional way. Though the proposed method, instead of describing a technical system with a unique FBS model, as many models as there are levels of detail in which it can be decomposed, can be exploited. Topology is crucial for linking them together in a hierarchical organization from macro to micro, so as to use the FBS ontology both to interpret and exploit physical phenomena in the design phase. Test results about the application of the proposed FBS multilevel method on a real industrial case study with engineering students showed its ability to modify their design attitude to generate solutions from an early expansion of concepts (breadth-first strategy) to the reformulation and refinement of the same (to depth-first strategy). More in detail, through the method, the students deeper analyse of the system, individuate a greater number of parameters on which to work and provide solutions exploiting the available resources more rationally.Graphical abstract

A conceptual design decision approach by integrating rough Bayesian network and game theory under uncertain behavior selections

Conceptual design decision plays a vital role in the new product development as it affects the direction of subsequent design activities. However, pertinent literature advocates the uncertainty assessment of the terminal scheme, but ignores the function interactions and the uncertain behavior selections derived from user’s preferences in the function-behavior-structure (FBS) design process. Besides, the decision-makers (DM)’s fuzzy judgments for behavior selections in the FBS model are not been addressed. To fill this gap, a conceptual design decision approach by integrating rough Bayesian Network (BN) and game theory under uncertain behavior selections is proposed, which could provide a graphic probabilistic model-based reasoning for the uncertain design process. In this approach, firstly, a sub-function importance model is constructed to achieve the extraction of the core sub-function module. Then, BN approach is developed to analyze the effect of uncertain behavior on the solution of sub-functions, and then support to predict whether to adopt the optimal scheme. And sub-function BN model is constructed based on the FBS model, and an initial BN model is updated by rough set technology. Finally, the probability distribution of uncertain behavior in interactive sub-functions is obtained from BN model, which is used to transform the uncertain behavior solving problem among sub-functions into a non-cooperative game process based on behavioral probabilities, and the optimal scheme is selected. A case study of tree climbing and trimming machine is used to validate the proposed approach and five principle solutions are selected, then the comparison results showed that the sub-function BN is able to provide a valuable design recommendation in new product development.

A Computer-Aided Design Based Research Platform for Design Thinking Studies

AbstractDesign thinking is often hidden and implicit, so empirical approach based on experiments and data-driven methods has been the primary way of doing such research. In support of empirical studies, design behavioral data which reflects design thinking becomes crucial, especially with the recent advances in data mining and machine learning techniques. In this paper, a research platform that supports data-driven design thinking studies is introduced based on a computer-aided design (cad) software for solar energy systems, energy3d, developed by the team. We demonstrate several key features of energy3d including a fine-grained design process logger, embedded design experiment and tutorials, and interactive cad interfaces and dashboard. These features make energy3d a capable testbed for a variety of research related to engineering design thinking and design theory, such as search strategies, design decision-making, artificial intelligent (AI) in design, and design cognition. Using a case study on an energy-plus home design challenge, we demonstrate how such a platform enables a complete research cycle of studying designers” sequential decision-making behaviors based on fine-grained design action data and unsupervised clustering methods. The results validate the utility of energy3d as a research platform and testbed in supporting future design thinking studies and provide domain-specific insights into new ways of integrating clustering methods and design process models (e.g., the function–behavior–structure model) for automatically clustering sequential design behaviors.

An innovative device to transport electron gun automatically in nuclear power plant

ABSTRACT The electron gun, as the equipment to generate and control nuclear reactions, has been widely used in nuclear power plants of the traveling wave reactor. To avoid the damage of radiation to maintenance personnel and improve the safety and security of nuclear reaction, it was necessary to realize the automatic transportation of electron gun. However, the working conditions of the automotic devices in a nuclear radiation environment were harsh and complex, which required the high operational reliability. Combining with the features and working environment, an innovative engineering design process based on quality function deployment (QFD) and function-behavior-structure (FBS) model was proposed for designing the transport device in the nuclear industry. With the guidance of this process, firstly, the problems and technical characteristics of the transport device were analyzed by the QFD method to obtain basic functions. Then, the FBS model was used to assist the designer to express knowledge and expand the search space of the schemes of control, structure, and material. Finally, the overall design scheme of the automatic transport device was obtained by adjusting these preliminary schemes. The design provided a solution to the possible interference phenomenon in automatic transportation and achieved the maximum reliability and safety.

Research on the propagation path of function change in product conceptual design

Product design was a repetitive process. Given that product structure was closely related to functions, function change was vital to the final design and core of design change. The effect of predicting function change during conceptual design on the final product structure was important to improve the design quality. A model was proposed to predict the propagation path of function change during conceptual design. Based on function–behavior relationship and behavior–structure relationship, a function–behavior–structure model of product design history was established. The propagation scope of function change in the functional layer was determined by analyzing input/output streams of functions. Function change was mapped onto behavior structure. The propagation scope of behavior change in the behavior layer was determined by analyzing the input/output state consistency of behavior. The changed parts were identified through behavior–structure relationship. Finally, the propagation path of function change was represented completely. The proposed propagation model of function change can provide a reference for quick product design. The feasibility and validity of the proposed model were verified through a case study, particularly the function change of monocular ice crusher.

A method of implementing formalized multidisciplinary collaboration in product conceptual design process

Modern product design can be considered as a process, which involves intensive iteration, complex reasoning, and mutual cooperation among the design groups in different disciplinary areas. In order to meet the requirements of modern products on multidisciplinary collaboration, the traditional method, where the product conceptual design is usually solved only within a single discipline, should be improved. Based on the classic function–behavior–structure model of product conceptual design, this paper studied the collaborative mechanism of functions, behaviors and structures, and proposed a new method/system of implementing formalized multidisciplinary collaboration in the product conceptual design process. In this method, the model/system of conceptual design process with multidisciplinary collaboration was established first, and three collaboration mechanisms were developed. After the coupling relationship among the design sub-states and the disciplinary classification characteristics of the design sub-states were expressed by the mathematical ways, the particle swarm algorithm was applied for the discipline planning, next the solving process for multidisciplinary collaboration were proposed. Finally, the conceptual design process of a stylus printer was used to illustrate the application of the proposed method.

Editorial: Health Education - Fostering Public Health Literacy through Innovative Educational Activities and Resources.

In a rapidly evolving scientifically grounded and technology-driven society, the development of health literacy is essential to ensure that the public is motivated and capable of retrieving, making sense, and applying accurate health-related information in their daily lives and professional activities. Accordingly, the investment in a sustainable public health education requires integrated actions addressed not only to lay people but also to health-specialist audiences. With the purpose of highlighting current topics in health education research, this Research Topic on “Health education: fostering public health literacy through innovative education activities and resources” brings together six articles aimed at the education of both the lay community and health professionals. Educational interventions targeting younger population segments tend to be regarded as effective, as they increase the chance of nurturing a healthy lifestyle throughout life (1, 2). The articles by Pais et al. (3), Raved and Yarden (4), and Horn et al. (5) address key interacting challenges aimed at younger generations through school health programs. Pais et al. focus on improving the capacity of individuals and the community to deal with health-related issues (3). Raved and Yarden consider the development of the knowledge base and the system thinking skills required to process the complexity and vast amount of information about those issues (4). Horn et al. study the promotion of informed decision-making about health-related behaviors (5). Each article examines the impact of innovative methodologies and perspectives that can boost the effectiveness of health education initiatives. Pais et al. (3) discuss the role played by the community in yielding the success of formal and informal health education initiatives. Drawing on previous studies supporting the relevance of taking on pluralistic approaches and collaborative research efforts to promote health education (6, 7), the authors present the outcomes of two mixed-methods studies carried out in a youth community organization and in a school in Portugal. By conceptualizing health according to socio-political and ecological dimensions that surpass individual and biomedical points of view and take into account the community influence, they demonstrate that young people are eager to improve their knowledge about health rights and healthcare access mainly because they perceive the great relevance of these sensitive public issues in a wider social context. In their article, Raved and Yarden (4) present a unified model for designing teaching and learning materials and characterizing students’ systems thinking skills concerning the circulatory system, based on three well-known models: systems thinking hierarchical model, competence for cell biology education, and structure–behavior-function model (8–10). The data gathered by the implementation of this model in a sample of 75 seventh grade students (12–13 years old) in Israel suggests that this may be an efficient tool to assist educators in promoting and improving understanding about dynamic relationships established between system components at different levels of organization. Moving beyond formal and informal educational contexts, Horn et al. (5) address the potential of large-scale evidence-based dissemination programs aimed at fostering healthy behaviors. The authors conceptualize a nine-phase dissemination model based on the Not-On-Tobacco Program, a youth smoking cessation program designed for 14–19 year olds developed in 1998 in West Virginia, USA (11), illustrating how it can be operationalized and demonstrating its applicability in other contexts. The development of proper training actions, educational tools, and resources for health professionals must not be neglected, as they are the social actors who harness the advancements in science and technology and convert them into practices that can benefit the population’s quality of life and wellbeing (12). Two contributions are presented by Kohzaki (13, 14). These articles focus on the skills and knowledge required to fully grasp the concepts and procedures that underlie genetic testing and counseling and allow practitioners to meet the challenges presented by the rapid technological advancements in the plethora of fields that make up the health sector. Kohzaki uses the example of the typical clinical genetics education of Japanese medical professionals to outline valuable recommendations that can help promote genetic literacy and enhance the quality of the services provided. In their opinion article, Zilberter and Zilberter (15) turn attention to healthy eating habits. Specifically, they focus on breakfast eating behavior, arguing that scarce evidence supports the assumption that this is the most important meal of the day. By reviewing relevant literature in the field, the authors conclude that the importance of this meal cannot be regarded as independent from an individual’s integrated dietary regime. The findings provide a scientific background to promote healthy eating behaviors in a wide educational context, especially in what comes to the need to critically interpret health-related information. Taken together, these articles provide interesting insights about how to advance health education and improve health literacy to empower both lay consumers and health professionals to foster high quality decisions-making and healthy behaviors.

Computer-based creativity enhanced conceptual design model for non-routine design of mechanical systems

Computer-based conceptual design for routine design has made great strides, yet non-routine design has not been given due attention, and it is still poorly automated. Considering that the function-behavior-structure(FBS) model is widely used for modeling the conceptual design process, a computer-based creativity enhanced conceptual design model(CECD) for non-routine design of mechanical systems is presented. In the model, the leaf functions in the FBS model are decomposed into and represented with fine-grain basic operation actions(BOA), and the corresponding BOA set in the function domain is then constructed. Choosing building blocks from the database, and expressing their multiple functions with BOAs, the BOA set in the structure domain is formed. Through rule-based dynamic partition of the BOA set in the function domain, many variants of regenerated functional schemes are generated. For enhancing the capability to introduce new design variables into the conceptual design process, and dig out more innovative physical structure schemes, the indirect function-structure matching strategy based on reconstructing the combined structure schemes is adopted. By adjusting the tightness of the partition rules and the granularity of the divided BOA subsets, and making full use of the main function and secondary functions of each basic structure in the process of reconstructing of the physical structures, new design variables and variants are introduced into the physical structure scheme reconstructing process, and a great number of simpler physical structure schemes to accomplish the overall function organically are figured out. The creativity enhanced conceptual design model presented has a dominant capability in introducing new deign variables in function domain and digging out simpler physical structures to accomplish the overall function, therefore it can be utilized to solve non-routine conceptual design problem.

An FTPBM Model for Conceptual Design of Mechanical Execution System

Mechanical execution system is an important part of mechanical system that contributes to the delivery of system function. There is currently no conceptual design model that is specifically for the conceptual design of mechanical execution system. Based on the FBS (Function-Behavior-Structure) model, this paper investigates the characteristics of the conceptual design process of mechanical execution system, and subsequently proposed an FTPBM (Function-Technology-Process action-Motion behavior-Mechanism) model for its conceptual design. The model includes a functional prototype and six steps of design procedure as well as a number of design synthesis strategies and methods. A design case of press machine is also studied, which demonstrates the proposed model to be not only practicable, but also improve the designers innovation capability.

How the Next Generation of Products Pushes to Rethink the Role of Users and Designers

An emerging category of products, such as gadgets and smart devices, provides the user with high levels of customization but imposes to revise the roles of both users and designers. The Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) framework has been proved to describe both designers perspective and customers use in a proper way. The paradigm has to be adapted when the high level of product customization enables all the users to reinvent the product itself. Researchers, amateurs, makers are now capable to fully interact with the electronic, the control software and even the shape of finished products. Main enablers of such change are several emerging technological solutions, both hardware (such as low cost 3D printers, programmable electronic boards, low cost sensors and actuators) and software (such as user-manufacturing web platforms). A design language that encompasses this new way of doing design becomes a priority. The paper investigates the role of FBS model as a practical response to this topic and presents a user-manufacturing web platform based on this theoretical framework. The design and development of a new smart object, performed through the introduced platform, is presented in order to support the description.

A 30-year case study and 15 principles: Implications of an artificial intelligence methodology for functional modeling

AbstractResearch on design and analysis of complex systems has led to many functional representations with several meanings of function. This work on conceptual design uses a family of representations called structure–behavior–function (SBF) models. The SBF family ranges from behavior–function models of abstract design patterns to drawing–shape–SBF models that couple SBF models with visuospatial knowledge of technological systems. Development of SBF modeling is an instance of cognitively oriented artificial intelligence research that seeks to understand human cognition and build intelligent agents for addressing complex tasks such as design. This paper first traces the development of SBF modeling as our perspective on design evolved from that of problem solving to that of memory and learning. Next, the development of SBF modeling as a case study is used to abstract some of the core principles of an artificial intelligence methodology for functional modeling. Finally, some implications of the artificial intelligence methodology for different meanings of function are examined.

Situating needs and requirements in the FBS framework

The paper proposes an extension of Gero's Function–Behaviour–Structure (FBS) framework aimed at representing Needs and Requirements and their relationships with the Function, the Behaviour and the Structure of an artefact. Needs and Requirements are modelled as further types of variables to describe, with the same formal approach of the situated FBS model, the transformation processes, which occur in the earlier stages of design. The proposed model is clarified through an application to the information gathered within an industrial project to reduce water and energy consumption of a washing machine. By situating Needs and Requirements into the FBS framework, it is possible to properly represent all the tasks and the related cognitive processes characterising the earliest stages of the new product development.

Implementation and Quotient Representation of Creativity in Functional Layer and Form Layer of the Function-behavior-structure Model

Presenting a method to support the re-creative design of patented products is important for enhancing the ability for enterprises to develop innovative products rapidly. Considering the multiple functions for each basic structure to have and expressing each function in function-behavior-structure (FBS) model with basic operating actions, the creativity enhanced FBS function decomposition and structure matching model is set up with the aid of the quotient space theory. The sequence-keep partition and hierarchical partition have made the behavior creativity to realize in the behavior layer, the form layer partition based on the equivalence relation has made the structure creativity to produce in the form layer. The case study based on creativity enhanced FBS model shows that the general function of the patented products can be realized by simpler and fewer basic structures. It means that the model can efficiently support the re-creative design of patented products.

RFBS: A model for knowledge representation of conceptual design

Conceptual design has been broken down into sub-processes and elementary tasks in methodologies. These methodologies proposed suggest their systematic application. This paper assumes the possible execution of these tasks automatically. Nevertheless, it is necessary for computers to integrate the knowledge required during the conceptual design process. Knowledge models have been proposed, for instance Gero's Function–Behaviour–Structure (FBS) model for design. This paper presents the integration of methodologies with a model of knowledge for conceptual design in accordance with model-driven engineering. Our proposition extends the FBS model and presents its practical implementation through ontology and language such as SysML.

The ontology of Gero's FBS model of designing

Recent work by Vermaas and Dorst has led to constructive criticism and conceptual clarification of Gero's FBS (Function-Behaviour-Structure) model of designing. In this paper Vermaas' and Dorst's version of the model is scrutinized, with an emphasis on its temporal aspect and ontological implications. Regarding the latter, the model is found to be in need of amendment and further refinement to ensure its clarity and logical coherence. To this end, two alternative modifications of the model are developed. These results are not claimed to be of immediate practical use to designers. Rather, they are intended to contribute to a reliable conceptual foundation for research and tool development that may aim more directly at supporting design practice.

Structure, behavior, and function of complex systems: The structure, behavior, and function modeling language

AbstractTeleological modeling is fundamental to understanding and explaining many complex systems, especially engineered systems. Research on engineering design and problem solving has developed several ontologies for expressing teleology, for example, functional representation, function–behavior–structure, and structure–behavior–function (SBF). In this paper, we view SBF as a programming language. SBF models of engineering systems have been used in several computer programs for automated design and problem solving. The SBF language captures the expressive power of the earlier programs and provides a basis for interactive construction of SBF models. We provide a precise specification of the SBF language. We also describe an interactive model construction tool called SBFAuthor.