scholarly journals Evaluation of Human Ear Anatomy and Functionality by Axiomatic Design

Biomimetics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Pratap Sriram Sundar ◽  
Chandan Chowdhury ◽  
Sagar Kamarthi

The design of the human ear is one of nature’s engineering marvels. This paper examines the merit of ear design using axiomatic design principles. The ear is the organ of both hearing and balance. A sensitive ear can hear frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The vestibular apparatus of the inner ear is responsible for the static and dynamic equilibrium of the human body. The ear is divided into the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, which play their respective functional roles in transforming sound energy into nerve impulses interpreted in the brain. The human ear has many modules, such as the pinna, auditory canal, eardrum, ossicles, eustachian tube, cochlea, semicircular canals, cochlear nerve, and vestibular nerve. Each of these modules has several subparts. This paper tabulates and maps the functional requirements (FRs) of these modules onto design parameters (DPs) that nature has already chosen. The “independence axiom” of the axiomatic design methodology is applied to analyze couplings and to evaluate if human ear design is a good design (i.e., uncoupled design) or a bad design (i.e., coupled design). The analysis revealed that the human ear is a perfect design because it is an uncoupled structure. It is not only a perfect design but also a low-cost design. The materials that are used to build the ear atom-by-atom are chiefly carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, calcium, and nitrogen. The material cost is very negligible, which amounts to only a few of dollars. After a person has deceased, materials in the human system are upcycled by nature. We consider space requirements, materials cost, and upcyclability as “constraints” in the axiomatic design. In terms of performance, the human ear design is very impressive and serves as an inspiration for designing products in industrial environments.

Author(s):  
K. N. Song ◽  
B. S. Kang ◽  
K. H. Yoon ◽  
S. K. Choi ◽  
G. J. Park

Recently, much attention has been focused on the design of the fuel assemblies in the Pressurized Light Water Reactor (PLWR). The spacer grid is one of the main structural components in a fuel assembly. It supports fuel rods, guides cooling water, and maintains geometry from the external impact loads. In this research, a new shape of the spacer grid is designed by the axiomatic approach. The Independence Axiom is utilized for the design. For the conceptual design, functional requirements (FRs) are defined and corresponding design parameters (DPs) are found to satisfy FRs in sequence. Overall configuration and shapes are determined in this process. Detailed design is carried out based on the result of the axiomatic design. For the detailed design, the system performances are evaluated by using linear and nonlinear finite element analysis. The dimensions are determined by optimization. Some commercial codes are utilized for the analysis and design.


2019 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 00008
Author(s):  
Christopher Spalding ◽  
ZiXiao Wei ◽  
Anthony Yarkov

Axiomatic Design was applied in an undergraduate student-led project which culminated in the creation of an agile ergonomic monitor stand, a solution designed to optimise the productivity and working conditions of the office environment. The customer domain was determined using a Mendelow’s Stakeholder Analysis followed by contextual inquiries and lead user interviews. These customer needs were organised into different levels via Maslow’s Hierarchy and redefined in terms of functional requirements. The functional requirements were decomposed and classified using the Kano Customer Satisfaction and Long Tail Models, and ultimately organised into a functional requirement tree. Design constraints were considered and listed, and the customer and functional domains were compared using a House of Quality. This allowed potential design paths to be devised with respect to the chosen functional requirements. The path involving the smart ergonomic stand was chosen from a number of potential products assessed against the functional requirements by listing the potential design parameters in a morphologicalmatrix. Concepts were designed by creating combinations of these design parameters, with their suitability being judged using the Independence Axiom. The physical form of the solution was inspired using biological sources. The final details of the design were chosen using the Information Axiom to determine their suitability in practical implementation allowing the final concept to be produced in a 3D CAD model.


Author(s):  
Haoqi Wang ◽  
Xu Zhang ◽  
Chengtong Tang ◽  
Vincent Thomson

Design of large-scale engineering systems such as an automobile, satellite, or airplane is a process to satisfy requirements by making various decisions. Design axioms provide system designers with a theoretical background to make right decisions. However, the axiomatic systems design is still hard to be implemented in the real word due to its informal representation for both the human and machine, and few researches focus on formalizing concepts of this process. In order to define axiomatic systems design models to be both user-understandable and machine-readable, this paper combines axiomatic design process with the Semantic Web technology and proposes an axiomatic design semantic representation model, called axiomatic design ontology, which organizes customers’ requirements, functional requirements, design parameters, and design solutions. The class of concepts elements and their semantic relationships are defined by the Web Ontology Language (OWL2). Rules for identifying functional couplings (the Independence Axiom) and selecting the optimal design solution (the Information Axiom) are formally represented and encoded with the Semantic Web Rule Language, which enhances the reasoning capability of the axiomatic design ontology. A framework for capturing systems design semantic information based on the axiomatic design ontology, and aligning it with domain-specific ontologies according to the semantic mapping approach has been developed, by which elaborated design information is captured and shared. Finally, a case study of systems design of a satellite solar wing subsystem is given to demonstrate the proposed axiomatic design ontology-based systems design approach.


Author(s):  
T. H. KOH ◽  
F. E. H. TAY ◽  
M. W. S. LAU ◽  
E. LOW ◽  
G. SEET

In this paper, Axiomatic Design (AD) theory was adopted for the design analysis of an underactuated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) system and its subcomponents. The system design issues of the Propulsion and Control System of the ROV II are analyzed and addressed based on the Independence Axiom methodology. The top-level Functional Requirements (FRs) for the thruster design and configuration are identified and its corresponding Design Parameters (DPs) are also presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 223 ◽  
pp. 01009
Author(s):  
Auðunn Herjólfsson ◽  
Haraldur Helgason ◽  
Sindri S. Ingvason ◽  
þráinn þórarinsson ◽  
Joseph Timothy Foley

With the explosion of smart devices, tablets can currently be found everywhere. From schools to kiosks to watching movies in bed, these devices are prevalent everywhere in modern life. The problem with watching movies in bed using tablets is the necessity of hand usage. The market currently holds a few products that attempt to solve this, but none truly frees the user, allowing them hands-free usage with an easy exit of the bed. In this paper, we will describe a design which, utilizing axiomatic design, will out-perform anything currently existing in the same field, by giving a stable viewing experience while fitting to nearly any bed or sofa. Axiomatic Design ensured a comprehensive design process by ensuring customer needs were transformed into carefully thought out functional requirements and design parameters while maintaining modularity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 00002
Author(s):  
Masayuki Nakao ◽  
Kenji Iino

This paper proposes “Value Axiom” that states “The larger the sum of Customer Attribute values, the better the design.” A customer evaluates a design with the sum of the value produced by each Customer Attribute, expressing it with a monetary value such as Japanese yen. A designer can hardly estimate and express a perfect set of Customer Attributes at the early stage of a design. The designer writes down the design equation to visualize the entire design, and improves the sets of Design Parameters and Functional Requirements using the Independence Axiom and Information Axiom, and at the same time, it is also important to review the values of Customer Attributes using the Value Axiom.


Author(s):  
Y. S. Yang ◽  
B. S. Jang ◽  
Y. S. Song ◽  
Y. S. Yeon ◽  
S. H. Do

Abstract The Design Axioms proposed by N. P. Suh consist of Independence Axiom and Information Axiom. The Independence Axiom assists a designer in generating good design alternatives by considering the relations between the functions and the physical product using a hierarchical mapping procedure. The Information Axiom, which is related to the probability of achieving the given functional requirements, can be used as a criterion for the selection of the best solution among the proposed alternatives in the conceptual or preliminary design stage. In the early stages of marine design, especially ship design, there exists a lot of uncertainty because of the size and complexity of a marine vehicle. The uncertainty often leads to a probabilistic approach rather than a deterministic approach. The ship designs are mostly routine design to change an existing design case a little. In this paper, the availability of the Design Axioms in this marine design field will be investigated through three examples. In the conceptual design of a thruster, the Independence Axiom will be proven to be useful in examining the independence of functional requirements at each level of the decomposition process. In main engine selection example, the Information Axiom will be used for selecting the best solution among the given alternatives by estimating their respective information contents under the uncertain and ambiguous condition. In the structural design, some difficulties arise in maintaining the independence of functional requirements in general because the number of design parameters is greater than that of functional requirements. Therefore, there is much trouble in generalizing the application of the Design Axioms for the structural design, especially for the preliminary design where the principal design parameters of a design object have to be determined after its shape fixed. This paper will try a generalized approach to the similarity-based design where it is important to select which parameters should be changed and in what order they should be changed. How to make use of the Design Axioms will be showed in a barge design example. However, a lot of research is needed for the generalized application of the Design Axioms for the structural design.


Author(s):  
Zhuochen Shi ◽  
Gregory Mocko

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 00015
Author(s):  
Wenguang Lin ◽  
Renbin Xiao ◽  
Rongshen Lai ◽  
Xiaozhen Guo

Axiomatic design theory is widely used in new product development by providing design solutions through mapping between functional requirements and design parameters. However, the theory does not provide a method to help designer obtain and select design parameters. To this end, this paper introduces patent analysis to overcome the deficiency. Firstly, functional requirements are transformed into patent search terms, and design parameters are obtained from patents. Secondly, morphological matrix is used to represent the relationships between target function and multiple design parameters. Thirdly, design parameters with higher patent frequency are chose and combined into a new scheme. Finally, the scheme is evaluated by the independent axiom of Axiomatic Design theory. The methodology is demonstrated and validated with a case study of spa shower.


Author(s):  
Qijian Zhao ◽  
Yanlong Cao ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Lifei Ren ◽  
Jiangxin Yang

Tolerance specification involves selecting tolerance types for functional or assembly features to control the variation of features. General methods tend to formulate a frame to specify all the features of part, while the specification methods or reasoning rules for specific feature (point, line, plane, cylinder, etc.) are less studied. This paper focuses on the tolerance-type selection of the plane feature. The theory of axiomatic design is introduced to select the tolerance type for the plane feature, and the problem is interpreted as a redundant decoupled design. To achieve the functional requirements, design parameters and constraints of physics domain are determined. The mapping rules, which are between design parameters and functional requirements, are generated based on the independent axiom. Considering the large number of solutions of the design, the constraints such as cost and inspection methods are introduced to reduce the number of solutions. The minimum information axiom is introduced for the optimum mapping rules and the tolerance types are selected by the optimum mapping rules for the plane feature. Finally, the specification process is concluded and demonstrated by means of an example.


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