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The management of intelligence-assisted finite element analysis technology
Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches to Finite Element Analysis (FEA), have had tentative degrees of success over the last few years and some authors have argued that effective FEA can help in the manufacture reliability and safety aspects of engineered artefacts. The author of this paper reviews how such AI techniques have been applied and in this light, the author then uses a Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM), to develop a framework for the management of intelligence-assisted FEA
An empirical investigation of the relationship of CAD use in designing and creativity through a creative behaviours framework
This thesis reports a study of the relationship of CAD use in designing and creativity
through a Creative Behaviours Framework.
This thesis provides a description of the establishment of a framework for gathering
empirical evidence to support the analysis of links between CAD and creativity. The
Creative Behaviours Framework consists of seven categories including novelty,
appropriateness, motivation, fluency, flexibility, sensitivity, and insightfulness. The
framework was developed from published literature largely relating to the area of
cognitive psychology.
The research reports findings concerning the use of this framework in analysing the use
of CAD at Loughborough University and involved four postgraduates, two finalist
undergraduates, and the researcher s own design project. Multiple data gathering methods
including interviews, observations, protocol analysis, and design diaries have been used
in this study to provide data reliability and validity.
The results demonstrate the occurrence of creative behaviours in relation to the use of
CAD when designing. Most of the categories had a significant number of occurrences
observed and identified in the case studies using the data gathering methods (in particular
protocol analysis and design diaries). However, novelty was only reported from the
design diaries in Case studies 1 and 2. Some findings that linked the emergence of
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creative characteristics of product outcomes with CAD usage were also established from
data analysis of the design diaries. Hence, a key research output is the development of a
framework which enabled researchers to observe and identify creative behaviours whilst
CAD was used in designing.
This framework has shown its reliability by also capturing creative behaviours in other
than CAD activities such as 2D sketching and 3D sketch modelling. The findings from
Case studies 1 and 2 indicated that creative behaviours were consistently identified
during the observations of these design modelling activities. It shows that the Creative
Behaviours Framework is not exclusively useful to observe creative behaviours during
CAD use, but can also be applied in identifying these behaviours in other designing
activities. An online questionnaire explored whether this framework could also be useful
in wider application such as in supporting teachers in developing effective classroom and
studio practice to encourage the emergence of creative behaviours by their students.
The research study (using case studies and paper questionnaires) was undertaken with
students of the Design and Technology Department, Loughborough University and the
findings could be biased to this particular population. Hence, the online questionnaire
was carried out with Malaysian CAD users to provide broader feedback. Although there
was a small number of responses received from Malaysia, the data still provided a useful
foundation to make the comparison between the UK and Malaysian CAD users
perceptions about the relationship between creativity, in particular creative behaviours
and the use of CAD in designing
Mediating Cognitive Transformation with VR 3D Sketching during Conceptual Architectural Design Process
Communications for information synchronization during the conceptual design phase require designers to employ more intuitive digital design tools. This paper presents findings of a feasibility study for using VR 3D sketching interface in order to replace current non-intuitive CAD tools. We used a sequential mixed method research methodology including a qualitative case study and a cognitive-based quantitative protocol analysis experiment. Foremost, the case study research was conducted in order to understand how novice designers make intuitive decisions. The case study documented the failure of conventional sketching methods in articulating complicated design ideas and shortcomings of current CAD tools in intuitive ideation. The case study’s findings then became the theoretical foundations for testing the feasibility of using VR 3D sketching interface during design. The latter phase of study evaluated the designers’ spatial cognition and collaboration at six different levels: “physical-actions”, “perceptualac ons”, “functional-actions”, “conceptual-actions”, “cognitive synchronizations”, and “gestures”. The results and confirmed hypotheses showed that the utilized tangible 3D sketching interface improved novice designers’ cognitive and collaborative design activities. In summary this paper presents the influences of current external representation tools on designers’ cognition and collaboration as well as providing the necessary theoretical foundations for implementing VR 3D sketching interface. It contributes towards transforming conceptual architectural design phase from analogue to digital by proposing a new VR design interface. The paper proposes this transformation to fill in the existing gap between analogue conceptual architectural design process and remaining digital engineering parts of building design process hence expediting digital design process
A web-based teaching/learning environment to support collaborative knowledge construction in design
A web-based application has been developed as part of a recently completed research which proposed a conceptual framework to collect, analyze and compare different design experiences and to construct structured representations of the emerging knowledge in digital architectural design. The paper introduces the theoretical and practical development of this application as a teaching/learning environment which has significantly contributed to the development and testing of the ideas developed throughout the research. Later in the paper, the application of BLIP in two experimental (design) workshops is reported and evaluated according to the extent to which the application facilitates generation, modification and utilization of design knowledge
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