Engineering Design Synthesis

This book is an attempt to bring together some of the most infiuential pie ces of research that collectively underpin today's understanding of what constitutes and contributes to design synthesis, and the approaches and tools for supporting this important activity. The book has three parts. Part 1 - Understanding - is intended to provide an overview of some of the major findings as to what constitutes design synthesis, and some of its major infiuencing factors. Part 2 - Approaches - provides descriptions of some of the major prescriptive approaches to design synthesis that together infiu enced many of the computational tools described in the final part. Part 3 - Tool- is a selection of the diverse range of computational approaches being developed to support synthesis in the major strands of synthesis research - composition, retrieval, adaptation and change. In addition, the book contains an editorial introduction to the chapters and the broader context of research it represents, and a supplementary bibliography to help locate this broader expanse of work. With the wide variety of methods and tools covered, this book is intended primarily for graduate students and researchers in product design and development; but it will also be beneficial for educators and prac titioners of engineering design, for whom it should act as a valuable sourcebook of ideas for teaching or enhancing design creativity.

The first ever attempt to bring together a comprehensive array of some of the most influential pieces of research that together underpin today's understanding of what constitutes and influences design synthesis, and approaches as to how this important activity can be supported Broadens the approach to design from the traditional engineering point of view to include systematised research in the psychological and sociological effects of design

Inhalt
1: Understanding.- 1 Defining synthesis: on the senses and the logic of design synthesis.- 2 Insight, design principles and systematic invention.- 3 Synthesis and theory of knowledge: general design theory as a theory of knowledge, and its implication to design.- 4 Theory of technical systems and engineering design synthesis.- 5 A knowledge operation model of synthesis.- 2: Approaches.- 6 Two approaches to synthesis based on the domain theory.- 7 Using the concept of functions to help synthesise solutions.- 8 Design catalogues and their usage.- 9 TRIZ, the Altshullerian approach to solving innovation problems.- 3: Tools.- 10 Synthesis of schematic descriptions in mechanical design.- 11 An approach to compositional synthesis of mechanical design concepts using computers.- 12 Synthesis based on function-means trees: Schemebuilder.- 13 Design processes and context for the support of design synthesis.- 14 Retrieval using configuration spaces.- 15 Creative design by analogy.- 16 Design patterns and creative design.- 17 FAMING: supporting innovative design using adaptation a description of the approach, implementation, illustrative example and evaluation.- 18 Transforming behavioural and physical representations of mechanical designs.- 19 Automatic synthesis of both the topology and numerical parameters for complex structures using genetic programming.