Optimal Concurrent Design of Complex Mechanical Products and Systems

并行设计的目的是通过将下游产品开发生命周期方面(如制造)的考虑融入到早期设计阶段，从而缩短产品开发周期并提高产品整体质量。在过去的几年里，我们的研究计划一直专注于开发新的方法和软件工具，以支持并行设计及其工业应用。这项研究取得了可观的科学贡献和显著的经济效益。 所提出的研究方案将把以前发展的并行设计方法扩展到复杂机械产品和系统的最优并行设计，其中需要多种技术来对机械产品和系统进行建模、仿真和优化。这项研究的长期目标是为未来的CAD系统开发支持最优并行设计功能的方法学。 拟开展的研究将集中在以下几个方面。(1)引入了一种混合建模方案，以集成不同产品生命周期方面的不同类型的产品描述。(2)开发了一种混合仿真方法，将不同产品生命周期方面的各种评估工具集成到同一环境中。(3)开发了一种混合优化方法，以有效和高效地识别从不同产品生命周期角度进行的各种评价的最优设计。(4)提出的并行设计方法在燃料电池系统设计中的应用。 这项研究将为复杂机械产品和系统的建模、仿真和优化提供一种新的途径和许多新的计算方法/工具。这些新方法可用于提高产品在市场上的竞争力。该方法有可能在未来的CAD系统中形成支持最优并行设计功能的关键组件。

Concurrent design aims at reducing product development lead time and improving product overall quality by incorporating considerations in down-stream product development life-cycle aspects, such as manufacturing, into the early design stage. Over the past years, our research program has focused on development of new methodologies and software tools for supporting concurrent design, as well as their industrial applications. The research has led to considerable scientific contributions and noteworthy economical benefits. The proposed research program will extend the previously developed concurrent design methods to the optimal concurrent design of complex mechanical products and systems where multiple techniques are required in modeling, simulation and optimization of the mechanical products and systems. The long-term objective of this research is to develop the methodologies for the future CAD systems to support the optimal concurrent design functions. The proposed research will focus on the following aspects. (1) Introduction of a hybrid modeling scheme to integrate different types of product descriptions in different product life-cycle aspects. (2) Development of a hybrid simulation method to integrate various tools used for evaluations in different product life-cycle aspects into the same environment. (3) Development of a hybrid optimization method to identify the optimal design considering various evaluations from different product life-cycle perspectives in an effective and efficient manner. (4) Application of the developed concurrent design approach to the design of fuel cell systems. The research will introduce a new approach and many new computing methods/tools for carrying out concurrent design through modeling, simulation and optimization of complex mechanical products and systems. The new methods can be used for improving competitiveness of products in the market places. The proposed approach has the potential to form the key components in the future CAD systems that support the optimal concurrent design functions.