Design rationale analysis methods for aeronautical engineering

21世纪的飞机工程师面临的根本挑战是掌握设计问题的复杂性和规模。这有多个方面。设计问题(例如，下一代运输机的机翼是什么样子)的解决方案受到法规、性能要求以及环境、可持续性和可维护性考虑的限制。由此产生的产品本身也很复杂，因为对冗余和功能的高要求推动了这一点。不可避免的是，设计过程反映了这种复杂性，并随着规模的扩大而失去效率。这一博士学位将帮助我们从以创新方式捕捉设计决策背后的原理的角度来解决这个问题-它们的有效后续检索将有助于产品认证和以一种与产品复杂性有利的方式重新设计。

The fundamental challenge for the 21st century aircraft engineer is to stay on top of the complexity and size of the design problem. This has multiple facets. The solution to a design question (such as, what does the wing of a next generation transport aircraft look like) is constrained by regulations, performance requirements and environmental, sustainability and maintainability considerations. The resulting product itself is complex too, as driven by high demands on redundancy and functionality. Inevitably, design processes mirror this complexity and lose efficiency with increasing scale. This PhD will help us tackle this problem from the point of view of capturing the rationale behind design decisions in innovative ways - their efficient subsequent retrieval will aid product certification and re-design in a way that scales favourably with product complexity.