A graph-theoretic approach to conceptual design with functional perspectives

This paper explores the concepts of concurrency in design and develops an approach that involves reliability and other functional perspectives at the conceptual design stage. The paper uses graph theory to represent a product and define the relationships between its components. It employs the graph-theory concepts of the "tree" and the "forest" to represent a functional design artefact and idle condition, respectively. The approach presented in the paper provides a more refined visualisation of the energy Row and is applicable to numerous designs including sliding Sears, clutches, overrunning clutches and flywheels, amongst others. It can be used to concurrently modify the design taking into consideration various constraints, e.g. expected mechanical failures and cost considerations. A case study is presented to illustrate the benefits of the approach discussed in the paper. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.