Knowledge Base Representation for Axiomatic Design Through Ontologies
Axiomatic Design has been applied and developed as a tool, offering a scientific basis for design and improving design activities. Axiomatic Design has been used in various fields such as software system design, structure design, and product design. However, several challenges and limitations exist in Axiomatic Design including: the inconsistency in identifying design parameters, existence of coupled design, and multiple groups of functional requirements and design parameters. Aimed at using Axiomatic Design to generate conceptual solutions in engineering design while overcoming its limitations, a formal ontology is developed. The ontology defines functional requirements, design parameters, concepts, components and variables and their relationships. Axioms and rules of Axiomatic Design for the ontology are summarized. The Axiomatic Design ontology is applied to the design of a car seat as an example generating several concepts, and then compared and analyzed multiple groups of the concepts with the help of Axiomatic Design rules. More design ideas can be generated by combining detailed concepts as the higher level possible solutions.