General Systems Theory in a Horizontal and Vertical Action Process for Cross-Disciplinary Knowledge Transfer

Biomimetic product development builds a bridge between the scientific disciplines engineering and biology and represents a cross-disciplinary knowledge circulation, which can produce highly innovative advancements in technology. The methodological support for such projects was initiated by the VDI guideline 6220 by 2012 [1] and still requires further research. The method presented in this abstract tries to provide a significant contribution to the successful transfer of knowledge across disciplines, to convey innovative solutions from biology to technology. The central idea of the method called Heli-Act (an acronym of Helix and Action) described here is based on the system-theoretical analysis of the action and the action carrier, the action circle and the action line under the relevant aspects of the socio-technical integration of methods and tools that will support the action carrier in the biomimetic development process. As a cross-common “language” general systems theory is used, which also includes the mathematical modeling system for both action as well as for object systems, which allows a computer-assisted method implementation. For the association of specialized terminology of the disciplines involved in the cross-disciplinary communication a semantic network is used to derive a translation tool in the Ontology World Language (OWL). Practical application experiences from a current project are presented, which describes the tribological optimization of a technical joint by awareness from the analysis of insects joints.

Design of a Damper for a Suspension System via Evolutive Optimization

In this paper a dynamic optimization methodology for designing a passive automotive damper is proposed. The methodology proposes to state the design problem as a dynamic optimization one by considering the nonlinear dynamic interactions between the damper and the other elements of the suspension system, emphasizing geometry, dimensional and movement constraints. In order to obtain realistic simulations of the suspension, a link between a Computer-Aided Engineering Model (CAEM) and a multi-objective dynamic optimization algorithm is developed. As design objectives we consider the vehicle safety and the passenger comfort which are represented by the contact area of the tire and the vibrations of the cockpit respectively. The damper is optimized by stating a set of physical variables that determine the stiffness and damping coefficients as independent variables for the dynamic optimization problem, they include the spring helix diameter, the spring wire diameter, the oil physical characteristics and the bleed orifice diameters among others. The optimization algorithm that we use to solve the problem at hand is a multi-objective evolutive optimization algorithm. For this purpose we developed a parameterized model of the damper which is used to link the CAE tools and the optimization software, thus enabling fitness evaluations during the dynamic optimization process. By selecting the physical characteristics of the damper as design variables instead of the typical stiffness and damping coefficients, it is possible to consider important design constrains as the damper size, movement limitations and anchor points. As result of the proposed methodology a set of blueprints of non dominated Pareto configurations of the damper are provided to the decision maker.

Overall Structure Control for Product Design Using Geometric Skeleton Based on Functional Decomposition

Product conceptual design derives from the functional requirement initially, and the overall structure control for product design is one of the most difficult problems being addressed in CAD modeling. The objective of this investigation is to present a framework on rapid modeling using rules and mechanism library for mapping between functions and mechanism structures. In this paper, it is shown that the overall structure can be achieved largely by using multi-level parametric skeleton model. In order to drive the conceptual design into a more detailed design, the intelligent master model is presented to realize the parametric feature modeling and design knowledge reuse. The main contribution of this paper is that an integrated framework has been developed to design assembling tools of satellite by using a necessary auxiliary wizard. The case studies presented demonstrate the potential significance of this work for a wide range of engineering design problems.

Solar Water Heater Design for Houses in Arid Zones

This paper shows the simulation and design of a flat plate solar collector system, used to feed hot water to a typical home located in the city of Mexicali, Baja California, México. The system consists of a solar collector, a storage tank, a water pump and accessories and special tools that allow its proper operation. Analyzing the consumption and end use of water in a typical House, a demand profile is established, which combined with the weather information of the region, constitutes the input parameters required for the simulation of the system, which is performed with the software package TRNSYS. Mexicali, due to its location (latitude 32 °, longitude 114 °) and semi-desert condition presents high temperatures in the summer and low in winter, so the design and operation of such systems require special features, not always considered in the conventional ratings. This paper presents methods for simulation and design oriented to optimize the dimensioning and operation of this type of solar heaters in regions with extreme temperature conditions.

Uncertainty Analysis Plus Importance in Severe Accident Calculations: Quantitative Evaluation of Important Parameters

This paper describes a systematic framework for quantifying the degree of contribution of each parameter to the uncertainty of the output in severe accident assessment. This research is an extension of the recent work of the authors on uncertainty assessment of severe accident calculations where the main sources of uncertainty are identified through the so-called modified PIRT approach. The proposed methodology here utilizes uncertainty importance measures for the quantification of the effect of each input parameter on the output uncertainty. A response surface fitting approach is proposed for estimating the associated uncertainties with less calculation cost. The quantitative results are used to plan in reducing epistemic uncertainty in the input variable(s). The application of the proposed methodology is demonstrated for the ACRR MP-2 severe accident test facility.

Heuristic GP Finite Element Method for Structural Thickness Optimization

A finite element procedure created based on the linear strain triangle method is developed for structural thickness optimization. A new stiffness matrix is developed after assuming a linear relation between the triangle corner nodes. Nodes thicknesses are optimized using the developed Heuristic Gradient Projection (HGP) method to reach uniform stress among the structure to satisfy the constrained allowable stress designated by the designer. The advantage of the proposed method is that structural optimization can be carried out easily. Furthermore, this method gives more stable converging results and reduced the number of iterations and number of elements needed compared to the constant strain triangle with variable thicknesses which produced oscillating results before settling. This facilitates combination with other finite element software for structural thickness optimization.

PDM (Personal Design and Manufacturing) for Active Customers

As diversification is quickly increasing, industries are making tremendous efforts to cope with it. But this paper points out that these efforts are too much producer-centric. Our customers are not passive consumers as most industries assume. They are very active and would like to customize our products to their own needs and to their preferences. We should note that this act of customization is deeply associated with our basic need of self actualization. That is why their requirements are diversifying. We have to change our product development much more to customer-centric. New emerging technologies such as 3D printers enable them to get involved in product design and manufacturing. But if we consider the capabilities of the present states of these technologies and expertise of our customers, it is much easier to realize such customer-centric product development, if we extract the feature parts or feature points from a product that relate to personalization and let our customers develop them with the help of us, experts. The parts that do not substantially contribute to personalization may be developed as a common platform and these parts can be developed by experts without customer’s involvements. In this way, customers would feel they are actualizing themselves and would be more satisfied.

Functional Modeling: A Key Point in CAD Systems

For more than 40 years the development of Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools has been focused on the description of the geometry of products. More recently, CAD tools have evolved in tools to support the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), which are more oriented to support the management aspects of the product development process than the design process itself. Recently, it has been introduced a new design method that adopts a top-down approach, which starts from the definition of a Functional MockUp (FMU) allowing to simulate the overall behavior and the use of the concept level before the detailed design. This method is closer to the typical logical sequence of design, where the designer has at first an overall view of a system and of its sub-components, and then he takes care of the details. This method is supported by commercial tools, as the LMS-Amesim suite, or by open-source software tools based on the Modelica language. This is an open-source language allowing designers to integrate and describe at functional level several aspects of a system, including mechanical, electrical, thermal, hydraulic, control and others allowing to simulate all together. The paper analyses this methodological approach and presents some applications where some systems are designed using a functional modeling approach.

Geometry-Based PSO for Mechatronic System Design Optimization

In this work, we present a new multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) characterized by the use of the geometrization analysis of the particles. The proposed method, called geometry analysis PSO (GAPSO), firstly parameterize the data points of the optimization model of mechatronic system to obtain their parameter values, then one curve or one surface is adopted to fit these points and the tangent value and normal value for each point are acquired, eventually the particles are guided by the use of its derivative value and tangent value to approximate the true Pareto front and get a uniform distribution. Our proposed method is compared with respect to two multi-objective metaheuristics representative of the state-of-the-art in this area. The experiments carried out indicate that GAPSO obtains remarkable results in terms of both accuracy and distribution.

Differences Among an Expert and a Non Expert in the Behavior for Chucking in the Lathe

The expert worker (85 years old) has worked for 70 years and the non expert (16 years old) has worked 1 year of experience for the lathe processing. The subjects were compared the difference in the waist, the shoulder and the fore arm movement between the two worker while they were chucking on the lathe machine. Determination used the same parts and the same type of lathe machine for investigated. There were 4 main categories that related three stances position alignment and two hands position on the key chuck. Using the 6 infrared cameras and 2 video cameras captured the position of each marker. All markers position data which synchronization was taken by a motion analysis system (sampling rate: 100Hz). As a results show the balance movement both the waist and the shoulder during the chucking that had significantly greater in the expert worker than the non expert worker.