Engineering Open Product Architectures: A Constructal Approach

该补助金提供资金，用于建立在热力学领域开发的结构理论基础上实现开放产品架构的基本原则。 构造原理沿着与工程设计的概念和技术将被用来开发和实例化的基础数学，提供数学严谨的方法，工程开放的产品架构。 这些原则和方法将通过分析得到验证，并将通过两个工业测试案例进行说明，即大规模定制生产系统的饮料销售机和吸收式制冷机系列的设计。这项工作如果成功，将为开发一种正式的，数学上严格的方法提供概念验证，用于设计开放的产品架构，即，灵活地适应产品的发展，不断改进和适应的过程。 制造企业成功地使用这种方法，将使它们能够对市场的变化和/或对定制产品的需求作出迅速和具有成本效益的反应。

This grant provides funding for establishing the fundamental principles for realizing open product architectures by building upon constructal theory developed in the field of thermodynamics. Constructal principles along with concepts and techniques from engineering design will be utilized to develop and instantiate the foundational mathematics to provide mathematical rigor for the methodology to engineer open product architectures. The principles and the methodology will be verified by analytically and will be illustrated through two industrial test cases, namely, the design of beverage merchandisers for a mass customized production system and a family of absorption chillers.This work, if successful, will provide the proof-of-concept for the development of a formal, mathematically rigorous methodology for designing product architectures that are open, that is, flexible in accommodating product evolution with a process of continuous improvement and adaption. The successful use of this methodology by manufacturing enterprises will allow them to respond rapidly and cost-effectively to changes in the market and/or demands for customized products.