AN APPROACH TO SIMULTANEOUS SYNTHESIS AND OPTIMIZATION OF COMPOSITE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS

To be able to develop computer tools to support the engineering designer, it seems that the existing phenomenon models of the design process are too vague. The problem is that it is not possible to perform an unambiguous translation of phenomenon models into computer models, because the phenomenon models do not explicitly define design activities and results in the stages of the design process. This paper presents a phenomenon model of the design task execution. The activities to perform the design task execution are set up, and some of the activities are described using IDEFO and entity-relationship modelling techniques. The utilization of the results of this research will lead to computer tools to support the combined synthesis and optimization task execution, which is characteristic for mechanical design.