Collaborative Research: Creating a Computational Theory for Conceptual Design

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This project combines new design representations and computational approaches to enable computational conceptual design. The design representations and computational methods leverage the constant increases in computational power and information retrieval reasoning algorithms. Descriptive methods, stored knowledge, and algorithmic reasoning provide the potential for a computational theory of conceptual design that could greatly benefit the designer during difficult stages of concept generation. The underlying theme is the combination and formalization of function-based synthesis, constraint management and state space search. The primary objective of the work is to create a computational theory of conceptual design that can compute design alternatives. The computation will result in a comprehensive space of concept variants and search it for feasible candidates.The activity of concept generation is one of the cornerstones of engineering design. Until recently, the only resources available to a designer during conceptual design were personal experiences and innate abilities. While the designer's resources have advanced significantly in the last three decades, there is still a lack of continuity between computational design tools and conceptual design methods. Many formal methods of conceptual design have yet to be realized as computational algorithms. This research will develop representations and computational methods that allow design concepts to be created from the functional description of a needed product. Through the development of a design knowledge repository and a concept generator that uses the stored knowledge, this research extends the current understanding of the relationship between function and form and codifies it. Also, novel component representations enable computers to determine component compatibility and thus synthesize a concept variant. Additionally, this work is useful for comparison to human design behaviors, as it is built on commonly used design practices.This work is both basic and practical in nature. Thus, the broader impacts extend beyond publication to the usage of the resultant knowledge, methods and tools in education, engineering practice and research. For example, students will be able to use the concept generator to create solutions that, because of their limited experience, they might otherwise not have developed. These solutions will expose students to different disciplines and engineering and scientific domains. The results of this research impact industry and research in a similar manner. In both cases, the research can be used to generate a broader array of solutions much more quickly than would have been possible without it.