Conceptual project of a radio controlled aircraft in the SAE Brazil Aerodesign competition requirements

In mechanical engineering, the possibility of developing conceptual designs before building a prototype makes the process faster, more flexible and at a lower cost, enabling various tests, changes and improvements in the initial project. The construction of radio controlled aircraft is interesting for the technological growth of the engineering area, and competitions such as the one promoted by SAE Aerodesign enable the development of multidisciplinary projects involving various skills and students from different courses making them exercise their entrepreneurial skills and acquisition of new knowledge. This work aimed to elaborate a conceptual design of an aircraft based on the requirements defined by the SAE Brazil Aerodesign 2020 competition regulations, as well as its structural and aerodynamic analyses. After preliminary studies of the regulations and results from the winning teams of the last competitions, the parameters were defined and the conceptual project was elaborated and the preliminary structural and aerodynamic analyses were performed. With these results it was possible to define the design of the radio controlled aircraft meeting the requirements of the SAE Brazil Aerodesign competition for regular class, enabling the construction of the prototype and the start of the first competition team at ISECENSA

Conceptual Design of Electromechanical Actuation Systems for Large-Sized Directional Control Valves

Increasing performance in modern hydraulics is achieved by a close investigation of possible enhancements of its components. Prior research has pointed out that electromechanical actuators can form suitable alternatives to hydraulically piloted control systems. Since the requirements at these actuation systems depend on the operating conditions of the system, each actuator can be optimized to the respective hydraulic system. Considering that many different conceptual designs are suitable, the phase of conceptual design plays a decisive role during the design process. Therefore, this paper focuses on the process of developing new conceptual designs for electromechanical valve actuation systems using the method of function structures. Aiming to identify special design features, which need to be considered during the design process of electromechanical actuation systems, an exemplary actuator was designed based on the derived function structure. To highlight the potential of function structures for the development of new electromechanical valve actuation systems, two principal concepts, which allow the reduction of the necessary forces, have been developed by extending the function structure. These concepts have been experimentally investigated to identify their advantages and disadvantages.

Conceptual Designs for Sustainable Aesthetics: creative chess sets where form follows meaning

The paper presents conceptual designs that explore the notion of ‘sustainable aesthetics'. To encourage reflective practice through form and process, and guided by sustainable principles, a practice-based (thinking-and-doing) methodology was followed by Brazilian undergraduate design students. Beginning with a theoretical overview of the historical aesthetics of chess sets (premodern, modern and contemporary) the experimental findings show different approaches to thematic chess set designs that are guided by meaning-laden cultural considerations and developed using local, natural materials or reused (disposed) industrial materials. This is the first experiment of a project that represents a creative attempt to explore and develop an aesthetic for material culture through what we have termed a 'sustainable aesthetic function'. It demonstrates how objects with the same function can be expressed in very different ways whilst all adhering to the notion of "form follows meaning'.

Evaluating Sustainable Conceptual Designs Using an AHP-Based ELECTRE I Method

Evaluating sustainable conceptual designs is a crucial part of the development of new products in various sectors because it contributes to the survival and prosperity of companies. Such designs must be compatible with a product’s functional requirements and be sustainable in economic, environmental, and social terms. Various criteria, some qualitative and others quantitative, are considered when evaluating sustainable conceptual designs; some criteria may also have sub-criteria, and these criteria and sub-criteria may differ in importance. How to effectively evaluate various criteria and sub-criteria and weight them are the major research problem. This study developed an analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based ELECTRE I method to resolve the evaluation problem; the method entails a two-level hierarchical structure to depict the relationships between the major criteria and sub-criteria and their corresponding weights, with weights obtained through an AHP. Furthermore, an extension based on the addition of net concordance value and net adjusted discordance value is proposed for ranking alternative designs; this extension yields more distinguishable results than the method of [Nijkamp and Van Delft Multi-Criteria Analysis and Regional Decision-Making, Vol. 8 (Springer Science & Business Media, 1977)], and the proposed extension in the ELECTRE I method captures more information in the modified summation matrix when aggregating values in the concordance matrix and the modified discordance matrix, representing an advantage over the method of [Zhang et al. Virtual network embedding using node multiple metrics based on simplified ELECTRE method, IEEE Access 6 (2018) 37314–37327]. In addition, to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method, the example of the evaluation and selection of sustainable conceptual designs in the furniture manufacturing industry is presented. Finally, a numerical comparison is made to show the advantages of the proposed method.

A data-driven multi-criteria decision-making approach for assessing new product conceptual designs

The surge in competition among companies to acquire a more significant portion of the market as well as respecting customer preferences in high quality and diverse products result in a reduction of product life cycles. Accordingly, companies are under enormous pressure to introduce new high quality and diverse products on time. Assessing new product designs at the primary phases of new product development (NPD) is a necessary and complex activity that can considerably reduce the time and cost of introducing new products to the market. The current methods of evaluating new product conceptual designs, including employing decision-making methods based on subjective opinions of experts, utilizing simulation packages, and following trial-and-error approaches in prototyping, may be inefficient, very time-consuming, and costly. To overcome this issue, this paper develops a quantitative data-driven Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach founded on the combination of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), to assess the new conceptual designs. So that the ANN method is utilized to predict the performance characteristics of new designs based on the related existed data of similar products, and TOPSIS is employed to score and rank different proposed alternatives designs. Finally, a case study of evaluating new product conceptual designs in an automotive research and development company is considered to demonstrate the performance and applicability of the proposed approach.