scholarly journals Some Shape, Durability and Structural Strategies at the Conceptual Design Stage to Improve the Service Life of a Timber Bridge for Pedestrians

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 2023
Author(s):  
Alessandra Fiore ◽  
Martino Antonio Liuzzi ◽  
Rita Greco
Keyword(s):  
Service Life ◽  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Boundary Constraints ◽  
Early Design Stage ◽  
Conceptual Design Stage ◽  
Timber Constructions ◽  
Bridge Performance ◽  
External Forces ◽  
Timber Bridges

The use of wood in the construction of bridges has increased in recent decades thanks to the characteristics of this material, i.e., environmentally-friendly and suitability within natural landscapes. Nevertheless, timber constructions may be affected by degrading effects due to biological and/or abiotic agents, and may be exposed to impacts or vibrations due to external forces such as wind, earthquakes or walking pedestrians. Consequently, bridge performance with respect to these aspects should be assessed from the early design stage. Within this context, in this study, some shape, structural and durability strategies dealing with the design of timber bridges for pedestrians are investigated in order to extend the service life of these constructions. More precisely, a methodology consisting of three steps, to be applied at the early conceptual design stage, is proposed. The three fundamental steps to be considered in the preliminary design of timber bridges are: (i) main boundary constraints and load-bearing system; (ii) durability; (iii) vibration levels. In the study, the presented methodology is applied and described for the design of a pedestrian and cyclist timber bridge over the Gravina torrent, in Apulia (Italy).

A Web-Based Process/Material Advisory System

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusheng Chen ◽  
Satyandra K. Gupta ◽  
Shaw Feng
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Material Combination ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Advisory System ◽  
Conceptual Design Stage ◽  
Design Requirements ◽  
Parameter Ranges ◽  
Process Material

Abstract This paper describes a web-based process/material advisory system that can be used during conceptual design. Given a set of design requirements for a part during conceptual design stage, our system produces process sequences that can meet the design requirements. Quite often during conceptual design stage, design requirements are not precisely defined. Therefore, we allow users to describe design requirements in terms of parameter ranges. Parameter ranges are used to capture uncertainties in design requirements. Our system accounts for uncertainties in design requirements in generating and evaluating process/material combinations. Our system uses a two step algorithm. During the first step, we generate a material/process option tree. This tree represents various process/material options that can be used to meet the given set of design requirements. During the second step, we evaluate various alternative process/material options using a depth first branch and bound algorithm to identify and recommend the least expensive process/material combination to the designer. Our system can be accessed on the World Wide Web using a standard browser. Our system allows designs to consider a wide variety of process/material options during the conceptual design stage and allows them to find the most cost-effective combination. By selecting the process/material combination during the early design stages, designers can ensure that the detailed design is compatible with all of the process constraints for the selected process.

scholarly journals Retrieval of Semantic-Based Inspirational Sources for Emotional Design

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Jian Du ◽  
Yan Li ◽  
Jinlong Ma ◽  
Yan Xiong ◽  
Wenqiang Li
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Activation Mechanism ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Emotional Design ◽  
Semantic Richness ◽  
Retrieval Systems ◽  
Conceptual Design Stage ◽  
Semantic Techniques ◽  
Semantic Expansion

In the conceptual design stage, inspirational sources play an important role in designers’ creative thinking. This paper proposes a retrieval method for semantic-based inspirational sources, which helps designers obtain inspirational images in the conceptual design stage of emotional design. The core principle involves solving the designer’s own deficiencies in associations and limited knowledge, by bridging the “semantic gap” faced by designers when they use Kansei words for inspirational sources. This method can be divided into two aspects: (1) based on the semantic richness of Kansei words, the first part describes how a lexical ontology for Kansei words called KanseiNet is constructed and proposes a spreading activation mechanism based on KanseiNet to complete the semantic expansion of Kansei words; (2) the second part describes how, using existing semantic techniques, relevant design website resources are crawled and analyzed, images’ context descriptions and Kansei evaluations are extracted, and Kansei evaluation index of inspirational images is established. The KanseiNet for Chinese is first constructed, and the Sources of Inspiration Retrieval System for Emotional Design (SIRSED) is developed. An experiment comparing the existing image retrieval systems with SIRSED proved the latter to be a more comprehensive and accurate way for designers to access inspirational sources.

Forging a Geometric Link Between Function-Based Design and DfM

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manish Verma ◽  
Hui Dong ◽  
William H. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Direct Connection ◽  
Functional Modeling ◽  
Small Space ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Design For Manufacture ◽  
Part Geometry ◽  
Conceptual Design Stage

Design for Manufacture (DfM) tends to explore only a small space of possible designs toward improving manufacturability. By focusing primarily on detailed geometry, DfM tends to recommend incremental changes. This paper presents a methodology that begins at the conceptual design stage, applying functional modeling to the generation of design configurations. These functional abstractions are merged with real part geometry toward generating potentially manufacturable design skeletons. The direct connection from function to manufacturable form afforded by this method allows the designer to make better-informed design decisions at the earliest stages of the design process.

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