AN APPROACH TO FUNCTIONAL SYNTHESIS OF SOLUTIONS IN MECHANICAL CONCEPTUAL DESIGN .1. INTRODUCTION AND KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION

Conceptual design is an early phase in the design process, which involves the generation of solution concepts to satisfy the functional requirements of a design problem, There can be more than one solution to a problem; this means that there is scope for producing improved designs if one could explore a solution space larger than is possible at present. Computer support to conceptual design could be effective to this end, if an adequate understanding of the required design knowledge and subsequent tools for its representation and manipulation were available. This three-part series of articles describes one approach to synthesis of solutions to a class of mechanical design problems; these involve transmission and transformation of mechanical forces and motion, and can be described by a set of inputs and outputs. The approach involves (1) identifying a set of primary functional elements and rules of combining them, and (2) developing appropriate representations and reasoning procedures for synthesising solution concepts using these elements and their combination rules, these synthesis procedures can produce an exhaustive set of solution concepts, in terms of their topological as well as spatial configurations, to a given design problem. Part I provides an overview of the scope and the approach, adopted in the entire series, to identify the design knowledge required far synthesis, and a method for its validation. It specifically focuses on the extraction and representation of this knowledge. Part II describes synthesis of topological (graph structure) descriptions of possible solutions to a gives problem. Part III describes a procedure for producing spatial configurations of these solutions.