Intelligent Conceptual Design Research Articles

Intelligent Conceptual Design of Railway Bridge Based on Graph Neural Networks

In the conceptual design stage of railway bridge, the beam type of the bridge at the main control point must be modified repeatedly to satisfy varying requirements. Thus, the demand for design efficiency is high. However, railway bridge design relies heavily on professional knowledge and experience and is typically completed manually by senior designers, thereby requiring considerable time. An intelligent beam type recommendation algorithm named AutoDis Graph Ontology Attention Matching (AGOAM) is proposed to rapidly generate bridge design plans for railway route main control points. This method acquires the node embeddings of the main control point and beam type attribute graphs through graph neural networks (GNNs) and predicts the score of each beam type through graph matching technology. The beam type with the highest prediction score is recommended. In addition, the accuracy of the recommendation results is improved through ontology-enhanced attribute interaction and attention mechanism-based graph pooling. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated with a real-world railway bridge design dataset, and ablation study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the ontology-enhanced attribute interaction and attention mechanism-based graph pooling.

An intelligent conceptual design framework for complex machines

This paper presents an intelligent conceptual design framework for complex machine tools, which features a back and forth interaction mechanism between human intelligence and machine intelligence, towards a more productive design process. In particular, the focus hinges on the transition between concept generation and concept improvement, where a heuristics-based method is proposed to solve physical contradictions via a human-computer interaction mechanism. Focusing on the design of ultra-precision grinding machine, a case study presents how the framework facilitated resolving the key contradiction between high position servo stiffness and force control compliance, by a novel active grinding force control strategy.

Research on intelligent product conceptual design based on cognitive process

Early in the design process, designers attempt to explore in the wide design space to generate a number of feasible solutions and decide the best concept scheme with a high degree of uncertainty according to customer demands. A strategy that can assist designers in exploring and ascertaining design solutions within this vast space is therefore crucial. However, existing product design tools mainly focus on the detailed design phase and due to lack of effective design tools, it is often difficult for human designers to explore in wide multi-disciplinary solution spaces. Therefore, this paper proposes a cognitive process-based approach for assisting designers achieving intelligent conceptual design. By analyzing designers’ thinking characteristics, a design meta-thinking model is defined and a simulation model which is composed of divergent thinking and convergent thinking is put forward. Case-based reasoning and genetic algorithm are applied to stimulate divergent thinking to associate and produce feasible concept solutions. Furthermore, multiple-attribute decision-making method based on intuitionistic fuzzy number is employed to stimulate convergent thinking to obtain the best solution from generated conceptual candidate solutions. Finally, a case study is implemented on a turbo-expander. The result of this example demonstrates that the proposed approach can provide an intelligent manner to perform conceptual design. Meanwhile, a computer-aided design prototype system is developed based on this framework.

Research on Knowledge Representation in Choosing Mechanical Transmission Type

To tackle the knowledge representation problem in developing intelligent conceptual design system, a BP network based approach is proposed, in which the related knowledge regarded various mechanical transmissions can be acquired and represented with the trained weight and threshold of neural network if they are turned into numerical data, encoded with binary strings, employed as learning samples, and fed into the constructed BP neural network. In a sense, the trained neural network can be used as a knowledge base of expert system to facilitate the choosing process of mechanical transmission. This paper provides a promising approach to deal with the automation of knowledge representation in conceptual design of mechanical transmission.

Pedigree Based Product Conceptual Design

By applying pedigree into product conceptual structure design, an evolutionary conceptual design approach is set forth to make full use of creative and innovative intelligence of living systems for design automation. According to the evolutional logic of quantities to quality, the relationship between different conceptual structures is deduced and ordered，then is expressed as product pedigree. The classification description model of product pedigree is established, which can be used as unified functionally isomorphic model during the intelligent conceptual design process. On the other hand, according to the evolutional logic of quality to quantities, pedigree based product evolutionary design strategy are given. Based on the relation network among pedigree units, multiple variation designing schemes can be obtained, which is a strong backbone to the innovative design process. Finally, design examples are used to demonstrate the successful application of the proposed pedigree based evolutionary method in the multi-scheme conceptual design of product.

Product Pedigree Based Conceptual Structure Evolutionary Design

By applying biological pedigree concept into product conceptual structure design, an conceptual structural design approach is set forth to make full use of creative and innovative intelligence of living systems for design automation. According to the relationship between different product structures with same function, the classification model of product pedigree is established, which can be used as unified functional isomorphic model during the intelligent conceptual design process. On the other hand, according to the evolutional logic from quality change to quantities change, pedigree based product evolutionary design strategy is given. Product pedigrees which are homology dependent are used as basic evolutionary models, based on which, the parameter based, interaction field based and interaction mater based evolutional conceptual design method are proposed, respectively. Based on the relation network of the pedigree units, multiple variant design schemes can be obtained, which is a strong backbone to the innovative design process. Finally, design examples are used to demonstrate the successful application of the proposed pedigree based evolutionary method in the product variant design.

Constrained functional knowledge modelling and clustering to support conceptual design

This article presents a functional knowledge modelling and clustering scheme that supports conceptual design process. First, a general framework is introduced. Second, a new constrained functional knowledge model (CFKM) is presented. The details of the model include functional knowledge-related definitions, construction process of CFKM, concept of function relevancy, and structure relevancy. Finally, the proposed functional knowledge modelling method is applied to conceptual design of ‘sealing’ function in a hydraulic cylinder, which demonstrates the possibility in utilizing the functional knowledge with a unified systematic modelling scheme. The construction of CFKMs and the corresponding functional knowledge base is also contributed to intelligent conceptual design system in the future.

Re-Creation Process Model of Conceptual Design

Conceptual design is the premise of the detail design and could fully embody the human’s creativity, so it has become the core step for the new product’s development. In order to improve the creativity of conceptual design, the re-creation process model for the intelligent conceptual design is presented in this paper based on function-behavior-structure model. This model expanded the problem’s solution space by degrading the space of behavior and granularity, and describing the behavior space using the more basic behavior. At last, an example is given to prove that it is easy to obtain the novel and creative design scheme applying the method presented in this paper.

Conceptual Design Method Based on Behavior Re-Creation

Conceptual design for the mechanical products is the most important and complex phase. Most of the human’s creativity is exhibited in this phase. So many researchers in the world have made researches on its theory and methodology. So far there exists an evident limitation for the modern conceptual design methodology. That is to say, the design scheme obtained form conceptual design is only one solution to the given design problem, which cannot guarantee the creativity and novelty of the design scheme. In order to improve the creativity of conceptual design, the re-creation process model for the intelligent conceptual design is presented in this paper based on function-behavior-structure model. This model expanded the problem’s solution space by degrading the space of behavior and granularity, and describing the behavior space using the more basic behavior. The key of re-creation process model is the transformation of behavior and granularity space. Taking the theory of quotient space as the math description tool, the transformation for the space of behavior and granularity is studied in detail in this paper. At last, an example is given to prove that it is easy to obtain the novel and creative design scheme applying the method presented in this paper.

Mechanical product extensive intelligent conceptual design

Mechanical product extensive intelligent conceptual design

A Preliminary Semantic Differential Study on Users' Product form Perception

This experimental study investigated how users perceived product form. The semantic differential (SD) method, cluster analysis and protocol analysis were employed to examine users' form perception of mobile phone samples with 20 subjects. The total number of samples was 75, and the image-word pairs were 20. Completed in computer by general statistics software, the cluster analysis results revealed that the samples can be described with official, active, emotional, male, delicate, and luxury. Level analysis was performed to analyze the sample features and obtained the weight factors of body, screen and screen frame, button shape and layout, and contour line, and then a computer-aided conceptual design system was built to test this experiment so as to improve the system for further intelligent conceptual design and cyber-design.

Constructing an intelligent conceptual design system using genetic algorithm

Product design is a problem of multi-solution and how to find out the design schema, which is fit for the target demand, is a challenge for a designer to deal with at any moment. The main goal of this paper is focused on developing an intelligent conceptual design system, through whose assistance, the crucial problem for a designer mentioned above can thus be eliminated.

An approach to case-based system for conceptual ship design assistant

Designers heavily depend on their experience and existing ship data, when designing a ship. In preliminary design stage especially, decision making based on the designer’s expertise and heuristic knowledge are very important factors to design process because available information is limited, and cannot be fully supported by formal design procedure and design sheet. To support these conceptual design environment, the designer’s experience and heuristic knowledge are transformed into readable formats which can be operated on computer systems. The existing ship data are very useful and important in conceptual design. To use this data efficiently, it requires basically database of the existing ships and make practical application of it. In this article, intelligent system that can be a support to the conceptual design stage based on knowledge engineering was developed. Major design factors and parameters of the existing ship data were stored case base as design cases and the case base was connected with database for information exchange among them [Brown, A., Watson, I., & Filer, N. (1995). Separating the cases from the data: towards more flexible case-based reasoning. Proc. of International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning 95 (ICCBR-95), Sesimbra in Portugal]. To extract a good and suitable design case for a new ship design from case base, learning algorithm was adapted. The obtained knowledge from designers was used to compensate for the differences between the design case and a new design. The developed interactive intelligent conceptual design system (BASCON-IV) can be applied to commercial ships and bulk carriers.