Improve Design Efficiency Research Articles

MAYA-aided sculpture design and ANSYS Finite Element Structural Analysis——A Case Study of a Public Sculpture in JiangBei New District of Nanjing

With the acceleration of urbanization in China, public sculptures have become landmarks of many communities or architectural complexes, and promoted cultural environments. Computer-aided public sculpture design combined with structural analysis has become a new creation mode. This study investigates computer three-dimensional aid design combined with computer-aided engineering based on the creation practice of a sculpture in Jiangbei (north of the Yangtze River) New District of Nanjing to improve design efficiency and design quality. The results have certain reference significance for the current digital public sculpture design.

Reference subsystems for Smart Manufacturing Collaborative System (SMCS) from multi-processes, multi-intersections and multi-operators

ABSTRACTIn this paper, multi-process collaboration subsystem, multi-intersection collaboration subsystem, and multi-operator collaboration subsystem are deduced through the overall architecture of Smart Manufacturing Collaborative System (SMCS). Furthermore, the detailed implementation steps of SMCS are given, and verified by a case study in an automotive enterprise, which can realize the sharing of information, data and resources between adjacent business links and improve the utilization rate of enterprise's overall information and data resources. It also can improve design efficiency, save manufacturing costs and improve supply response speed. Then, it can save communication costs, and improve the utilization rate of information service resources.

Practical Design Method of Yielding Steel Dampers in Concrete Cable-Stayed Bridges

Restrained transversal tower/pier–girder connections of cable-stayed bridges may lead to high seismic demands for tower columns when subject to earthquake excitations; however, free transversal tower/pier–girder connections may cause large relative displacement. Using an energy dissipation system can effectively control the bending moment of tower columns and the relative tower/pier-girder displacement simultaneously, but repeated time history analyses are needed to determine reasonable design parameters, such as yield strength. In order to improve design efficiency, a practical design method is demanded. Therefore, the influence of yielding strength at different locations is studied by using comprehensive and parametric time history analyses at first. The results indicate that yielding steel dampers can significantly reduce the bending moment at tower columns and the relative pier–girder displacement due to the system switch mechanism during the vibration. Meanwhile, the yielding steel damper shows its general effect on reducing relative displacement between all piers/tower columns and the main girder as well, with only a localized effect on controlling seismic induced forces. Furthermore, a practical design method is proposed for engineering practices to determine key parameters of the yielding steel damper.

The study on construction and application of knowledge base based on TRIZ and bionics

The TRIZ and bionics are two main methods to guide invention and innovation, which have universal guiding significance to product concept innovation. However, the function of TRIZ is more specific and not conducive to expansion. In this paper, TRIZ function is extended by reclassifying and defining TRIZ function. Then the extended functions and biological functions are combined to build a knowledge base combining TRIZ and bionics. Engineers can use this knowledge base to accurately match imitation sources. It also helps designers improve design efficiency. Finally, the feasibility of the biological instance library is verified by the rib design of the flap-like flaps.

A Hybrid Knowledge Push Method Based on Trust-Aware and Item-Cluster Oriented to Product Design

A knowledge push system as a proactive method of knowledge management, and is an effective way to push knowledge to designers in the product design process. Knowledge push can help to improve design efficiency and quality, but the knowledge pushed to designers is less applicable in engineering scenarios. To improve the quality of knowledge push, we propose the trust-aware and item-cluster strategies to extract the two nearest neighbors of the designers and the design knowledge. Next, we adapt a fusion model for the two nearest neighbors, which is solved based on the gradient descent algorithm. Finally, the rating prediction that the designer gives to the knowledge component is the decision point of the knowledge push system, where we propose our final hybrid knowledge push method. A knowledge push system of CNC machine tools design is used to confirm that our method outperforms the other widely adopted methods.

A hybrid and automated approach to adapt geometry model for CAD/CAE integration

Traditional adaption of CAD geometry, which plays an important role in generating effective and fit-for-purpose finite element models, is usually carried out manually and optionally with excessive dependence on engineer’s experience. Automatic and efficient geometry modification before simulation evidently improves design efficiency and quality, and cuts down product life cycle. This paper represents an automatic approach to generate simplified and idealized geometry models for CAE simulation, which consists of hybrid model simplification criteria, feature-based model simplification, and simulation intent driven geometry modification. Hybrid adaption criteria takes detailed features geometric dimension, geometry topology, design intent into consideration synthetically. Simulation intent-driven modification with the help of virtual topology operators helps to deal with geometry at a higher level to get an ameliorative boundary for mesh without perturbing the original design model with constructing history for down-stream manufacture-oriented application, such as machining feature recognition and process planning. Development of plug-in toolkit guarantees automation of the simplification process and helps generate simulation-fitted geometry for subsequent analysis and simulation process. Prototype system and cases are implemented to demonstrate the result and efficiency of the proposed approach.

A Fuzzy Decision Support Approach for Modularization Scheme Selection of Product-Service Offerings

Many manufacturers today are striving to offer high value-added product-service offerings (PSO) due to increasing competitions and environmental concerns. Modularization of PSO can improve design efficiency and quickly response to customer’s personalized requirements. However, research has rarely been conducted on the PSO modularization schemes evaluation which is critical to the success of the whole modularization. There are also no proper evaluation criteria for such heterogeneous form of hybrid solution. Therefore, in order to select reasonable modularization scheme of PSO, an approach based on fuzzy TOPSIS with integrated weights is proposed in this paper. Integration of subjective weight and objective weight helps to avoid underestimating or overestimating weigh of evaluation criteria, while the fuzzy TOPSIS approach provides a structure of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) under uncertain environment. A case study of compressor rotor service is used to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Improving the Efficiency of Aviation Products Design Based on International Standards and Robust Approaches

The article considers the possibility of using QFD, robust design and other modern approaches for designing innovative aviation products. As an example, the projected unmanned aerial vehicle and engine, as its key part, are considered. Based on expert evaluation and analysis of benchmarking data, the main consumer requirements for UAV and a small-size gas turbine engine were identified. It is also necessary to pay attention to such general requirements as low noise, low emission of harmful substances (CO and NOx). The use of international standards of the ISO 16355 series as a methodology and basis for improving design efficiency is discussed. The results and conclusions can be applied to various types of aviation products, as well as used in other industries.

Development of a Process for Perceptual Index Establishment based on Axiomatic Design

With the increasingly intense competition in the market, more attention has been paid to customer’s perceptual requirements. Combining human sensibility and technology, Kansei Engineering plays a crucial role for industrial designers in making decisions at an earlier design stage in product development. However, sometimes it is challenging to define the customer requirements during the market research phase, especially for the perceptual requirements. Given this problem, this paper develops a process for establishing perceptual indexes based on the axiomatic design approach to improve design efficiency. To achieve this, an initial perceptual index is first built based on data previously collected from designers or design agencies. Then, the theory of axiomatic design is used to classify the schemes. The final perceptual index is filtered and built according to the frequency of occurrence.

Implementation Method for Circularly Polarized Omnidirectional Antenna

In practical, it is a challenge to design an antenna with circular polarization and omnidirectional patterns simultaneously. For convenient design, four detail methods for circularly polarization omnidirectional antenna are summarized and analyzed referencing the reported theses and papers. The summarized method can provide a direct guideline for researchers and engineers, which is useful for design efficiency improvement.

Study on Simulation of Gate Circuit Self-excited Multivibrator

Simulation in circuit design is increasingly used in recent years, because it can not only optimize design, reduce experiment consumption, but also improve design efficiency. However, when gate circuit self-excited multivibrator is simulated using EWB. The result of simulation experiment is wrong and is inconsistent with the one of real circuit experiment at all. Why dose this phenomenon happen? In this paper, a simulation experiment was made and the reason of wrong simulation experiment result was analyzed. At last, a solution method of simulation experiment was pointed out. This simulation experiment shows, in some special condition, little things can lead to a large difference.

A Deep Pipelined Implementation of Hyperspectral Target Detection Algorithm on FPGA Using HLS

Real-time target detection for hyperspectral images (HSI) has received considerable interest in recent years. However, owing to enormous data volume provided by HSI, detection algorithms are generally computationally complex, thus developing rapid processing techniques for target detection has encountered several challenging issues. It seems that using a deep pipelined structure can improve the detection speed, and implementing on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) can also achieve concurrent operations rather than run streams of sequential instruction. This paper presents a deep pipelined background statistics (DPBS) approach to optimizing and implementing a well-known subpixel target detection algorithm, called constrained energy minimization (CEM) on FPGA by using high-level synthesis (HLS). This approach offers significant benefits in terms of increasing data throughput and improving design efficiency. To overcome a drawback of HLS on implementing a task-level pipelined circuit that includes a feedback data path, a script based circuit design method is further developed to make connections between some of the modules created by HLS. Experimental results show that the proposed method can detect targets on a real-hyperspectral data set (HyMap Data) only in 0.15 s without compromising detection accuracy.

Parametric design of garment flat based on body dimension

Garment flats have a wide application in product development production and designing stages. However, the traditional drawing methods of garment flat are very time-consuming, and need professional drawing skills. In this paper, a parametric design method was proposed based on body dimension to draw garment flats. The relations among human body, flats and garment show that a garment flat has a close relation with human body and real garment. Graphic analysis shows that a garment flat is constrained by two kinds of parameters: geometric and dimensional parameters. Then, the parametric relation model between garment flat and human body dimensions was constructed. According to the parametric relation model, all the dimensions of a garment flat can be represented by several dimensional parameters and style parameters. Finally, an application program (JFRS, 2016) based on the proposed method was developed to generate garment flats. The result shows that the proposed method is more effective than traditional methods. Moreover, the engineering design methods have been successfully applied to improve design efficiency in artistic design in this research. This is a novel research idea in the field of fashion design, and could be further applied in other design domains.

DBSCAN-based modular design for the crane grab

In order to shorten design period and improve design efficiency of the grab to rapid response to market demands, modular design for the crane grab is one of the effective methods to enhance design efficiency. The design structure matrix (DSM) was used as a tool to capture the physical relationships between components within the grab and DBSCAN (Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm was used to cluster the components into modules. A method of module partition DBSCAN-based for product design was proposed, which considered asymmetric relationship between components and association relationship between two modules. The rule of modularity metric was to maximise high cohesion degree within the modules and minimise coupling degree between the modules.

Improvement of Quantum-Behaved Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm and Its Application to Ship Hull Waterlines Approximation Based on Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline

Nowadays, the optimization algorithm used in the ship design is a hot research area. The computation efficiency and stability of the algorithm depended on the number of design variables, the algorithm parameters, and operation process. In order to improve design efficiency and stability, this paper focuses on the waterlines approximation with as less control parameters as possible applying the improved quantum-behaved particle swarm optimization (QPSO) algorithm based on NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline). The optimization model is constructed with the homogeneous coordinate component of the fitted waterline's control points as the design variables. The objective function is set to minimize the maximum relative difference between the widths of the approximated waterlines and the original ones corresponding to the same stations. The appropriate constraints are set according to the characteristics of the free segments of the waterline. The QPSO algorithm is used to solve this optimization problem. With view to the correlation among the design variables, the algorithm is improved by introducing the memory factor to ensure the design variables within the feasible region during the evolution process. Based on this improved QPSO algorithm, the waterlines of the full-scale hull form are approximated and the hull surface is constructed using the skinning algorithm with them. Compared with the related reference results, this approximation method has higher precision and can satisfy the engineering design requirements. It is indicated that it is feasible to represent the hull form using the reduced data. Furthermore, the success rate and the average relative difference comparison between the basic QPSO and the improved QPSO show the reliability and stability of the algorithm. This method proposed in this paper provides a foundation for the hull surface design based on the reduced data. Meanwhile, the improved QPSO algorithm can be used in the similar optimization problem with the design variables correlated with each other.

Methodology of automated and robust and rapid layout of standard part for multi-plate die based on distributed assembly modeling strategy

Automated, robust and, rapid design (ARRD) is becoming the suitable solution in the field of engineering design. The poor efficiency of designing multi-plate dies depends greatly on the layout complexity of standard parts. A methodology of automated, robust, and rapid layout of standard parts for multi-plate dies is proposed based on distributed assembly modeling strategy (DAMS), which is practical to the layout of standard parts. DAMS is discussed under three aspects: (1) digitize the layout of standard parts via batch-mode standard cluster, which makes the layout driven by parameters possible; (2) optimize a value propagating path through a new structure of a distributed assembly tree, which would protect update against instability; and (3) distribute pending updated assembly in order to achieve concurrent processing, which accelerates updating speed. In addition, a two-step calculating engine is applied to calculate layout parameters based on rules and interference checking. The priority rule is put forward to decide the adjusting order when interference occurs. Finally, we implement two examples on an NX platform from two sides including automatic assembling and rapid reusing, which prove the feasibility in the proposed methodology. The ARR layout method will help the engineering design improve design efficiency and design quality.

Optimization of the reefed parachute using genetic algorithm

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to find optimal reef parameters to minimize the maximum instantaneous opening load for a reefed parachute with geometry and environmental parameters given in the model.Design/methodology/approachThe dynamic model Drop Test Vehicle Simulation (DTVSim) is used to model the inflation and descent of the reefed parachute system. It is solved by the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method, and the opening load values are thereby obtained. A parallel genetic algorithm (GA) code is developed to optimize the reefed parachute. A penalty scheme is used to have the maximum dynamic pressure restricted within a certain range.FindingsThe simulation results from DTVSim fit well with experimental data from drop tests, showing that the simulator has high accuracy. The one-stage and two-stage reefed parachute systems are optimized by GA and their maximum opening loads are decreased by 43 and 25 per cent, respectively. With the optimal reef parameters, two of the peaks in the opening load curve are almost equal. The velocity, loiter time and flight path angle of the parachute system all change, but these changes have no negative effect on the parachute’s operational performance.Originality/valueAn optimization method for reefed parachute design is proposed for the first time. This methodology can be used in the preliminary design phase for a reefed parachute system and significantly improve design efficiency.

A ship propeller design methodology of multi-objective optimization considering fluid–structure interaction

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a multi-objective optimization methodology that applies the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II(NSGA-II) to propeller design, and realizes Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) weak-coupling based on Panel Method (PM) and the Finite Element Method (FEM). The FSI iterative process and the convergent pressure coefficient distribution and pressure fluctuation of HSP (a propeller installed on a Japanese bulk freighter – Seiun-Maru) are numerical calculated. The FSI results turn out to have higher precision than those without FSI. The appropriate optimization parameters are chosen after studying five cases. The Sobol method, a global Sensitivity Analysis (SA) algorithm, is used to quantify the dependence of objectives and constraints on the input parameters. In the multi-objective optimization methodology, efficiency, unsteady force, and mass are chosen as optimum objectives under certain constraints. Effectiveness and robustness of the methodology are validated by running the program starting from four different random values, which all improve the objectives and converge to the similar results. The proposed multi-objective optimization methodology could be a promising tool for propeller design to help improve design efficiency and ability in the future.

Research on integrated product service system driven by customer value based on ontology technology

PurposeWith the customers’ increasing expectation on the product value, manufacturing enterprises around the world have made significant efforts to provide high value-added services in addition to their traditional product development and manufacturing business. For this reason, it is of great importance to research product service system. The purpose of this paper is to research on the key problem of integrated product service system (IPSS) design.Design/methodology/approachA value-oriented IPSS is developed, which is set up based on “requirements-functions-processes-structures” mapping model to give full consideration to customer value and service functions. An extended product-service blueprint, which stems from the service blueprint, is developed to describe product behaviors, service deliver processes, stakeholders’ activities and supporting activities. An ontology-based design support system is proposed to improve design efficiency and help designers making better-informed decisions. A computer-aided prototype system has been developed, and an initial attempt has been made to demonstrate the role of IPSS in the aerospace industry.FindingsMany traditional design methods cannot effectively address the objects and processes integration problem of products and services. Moreover, both product and service should be considered in IPSS design, and both of them extremely depend on designers’ own experience and knowledge. Thus, a broader range of knowledge is required to understand product-service system (PSS) design.Research limitations/implicationsThis research provides a solid foundation for PSS C and promotes an effective means for PSS design.Originality/valueA customer value-oriented IPSS is presented. Customer requirements are considered during the design phase of PSS as well as both product and service knowledge.

A study on improving bone conduction speaker performance by electromagnetic prediction and performance distribution by statistical analysis method

The present paper is focused on the stochastic characteristics of the electromagnetic force, one of the performance parameters for the bone conduction speaker which is one of the devices in the “smart glass”. The design parameters were taken as significant, affecting the electromagnetic force. Characteristic analysis of significant parameters was considered by using the factorial design method. Significant factor of main effect was selected via fractional factorial design method. Main effect and interaction of selected factor were analyzed applying the full factorial design method. The independency of the selected parameter and their significant interaction were examined by using the F-test method. Linear and non-linear characteristics for the selected parameters and performance were examined by creation of the median point within the analysis results for significance analysis. Therefore, prediction model derived non-linear regression model from the central composite design of response surface method. For probability distribution of the electromagnetic characteristics, related prediction model and Monte Carlo simulation method were applied. Electromagnetic performance prediction result showed 98.5 % level and improved maximum 99.8 % reliability level under 3σ level of dimensional management. In view of this, such stochastic design approach could improve design efficiency via verification of individual design parameters’ effect on the performance levels, thereby proving design reliability based on the object levels.