Design and Design Centers in Engineering Education

This paper is intended to be the opening salvo of the workshop, Computing Futures in Engineering Design (Dym, 1997). Thus, I want to take this privileged moment to ask you to think with me about the role of design in engineering. In particular, I want to reflect upon how design is articulated and how design is taught; about the role of design in engineering education and in the practice of engineering; and about the role that could be played locally and, perhaps, nationally by a center devoted to design education. Because I teach here at Harvey Mudd College (HMC), and because most of you are visitors, I will place my remarks in our context by telling you about what we do here and how that doing has shaped my thinking

Issues in the Design and Implementation of Expert Systems

This article discusses the issues that arise in the design and implementation of expert systems. These issues include: task selection; the stages of development of expert system projects; knowledge acquisition; languages and tools; development and run-time environments; and organizational and institutional issues. The article closes with some speculation about the future development of expert systems

Response of Lithographic Mask Structures to Repetitively Pulsed X-rays: Dynamic Response

This paper addresses the issue of the dynamic response of thin lithographic mask structures to thermally induced stress fields. In particular, the impact of repetitively pulsed x‐ray sources are examined: the short duration (1–100 nsec) pulses induce large step changes in mask temperatures, which can, in turn, induce a dynamic response. The impact of conductive cooling of the mask is to reduce the repetitively pulsed problem to a series of isolated nearly identical thermal impulses of duration approximately equal to the cooling time. The importance of self‐weight and prestress is examined, and an analysis of the nonlinear dynamic response to thermal impulses is described

Languages for Engineering Design: Empirical Constructs for Representing Objects and Articulating Processes

Design knowledge incorporates knowledge and information about designed objects and their attributes, as well as about methods and means for undertaking the design process. Such design knowledge is articulated in several different representations or languages. This paper presents a typology of the languages of engineering design, emphasizing the representation of designed objects and the articulation and representation of the cognitive processes of design. Design languages include verbal or textual statements, drawings and graphics, formulas, and numbers. Still other design languages follow from computational styles. The languages of design and their computer-based implementations are empirical in origin, since observation reveals that these languages are derived not from an overarching theory, but from our experience in trying to understand what we do when we: talk about designed objects, articulate design processes, and teach computers how to do these things as well. Next to presenting a typology of the languages of engineering design, and discussing the role of these languages in design activity, the paper also discusses the possibility of automating design activity through the design and manufacture of expert systems for product design. We will be looking at one of the most advanced systems of this sort, the PRIDE system, and use our study of PRIDE to discuss the possibilities and limits of automating design through the use of expert systems

On the Analysis of Small Displacements of Truss Joints

By emphasizing the kinematic aspects and implications of strain in truss analysis, it is shown that joint displacements can be computed in a straightforward manner

On the Evolution of CAE Research

Less than a decade ago it seemed that a new paradigm of engineering–called computer-aided engineering (CAE) – was emerging. This emergence was driven in part by the success of computer support for the tasks of engineering analysis and in part by a new understanding of how computational ideas largely rooted in artificial intelligence (AI) could perhaps improve the practice of engineering, especially in the area of design synthesis. However, while this “revolution” has failed to take root or flourish as a separate discipline, it has spawned research that is very different from traditional engineering research. To the extent that such CAE research is different in style and paradigm, it must also be evaluated according to different metrics. Some of the metrics that can be used are suggested, and some of the evaluation issues that remain as open questions are pointed out

Exploring Physical Intuition in Elementary Pressure Vessels

It is shown that displacement calculations for two classical ‘chestnuts’ – thick cylinders and spheres under internal and external pressures – present results that are not easily anticipated. Thus, such analyses provide an interesting opportunity for students (and teachers) taking elementary and advanced courses in the strength of materials to explore and perhaps enhance their physical intuition

Integrating Functional Synthesis

Design couples synthesis and analysis in iterative cycles, alternatively generating solutions, and evaluating their validity. The accuracy and depth of evaluation has increased markedly because of the availability of powerful simulation tools and the development of domain-specific knowledge bases. Efforts to extend the state of the art in evaluation have unfortunately been carried out in stovepipe fashion, depending on domain-specific views both of function and of what constitutes “good” design. Although synthesis as practiced by humans is an intentional process that centers on the notion of function, computational synthesis often eschews such intention for sheer permutation. Rather than combining synthesis and analysis to form an integrated design environment, current methods focus on comprehensive search for solutions within highly circumscribed subdomains of design. This paper presents an overview of the progress made in representing design function across abstraction levels proven useful to human designers. Through an example application in the domain of mechatronics, these representations are integrated across domains and throughout the design process

Knowledge-Based Support for Management of Concurrent, Multidisciplinary Design

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications to design have tended to focus on modeling and automating aspects of single discipline design tasks. Relatively little attention has thus far been devoted to representing the kinds of design \u27metaknowledge\u27 needed to manage the important interface issues that arise in concurrent design, that is, multidisciplinary design decision-making. This paper provides a view of the process and management of concurrent design and evaluates the potential of two AI approaches—blackboard architectures and co-operative distributed problem-solving (CDPS)—to model and support the concurrent design of complex artifacts. A discussion of the process of multidisciplinary design highlights elements of both sequential and concurrent design decision-making. We identify several kinds of design metaknowledge used by expert managers to: partition the design task for efficient execution by specialists; set appropriate levels of design conservatism for key subsystem specifications; evaluate, limit and selectively communicate design changes across discipline boundaries; and control the sequence and timing of the key (highly constrained and constraining) design decisions for a given type of artifact. We explore the extent to which blackboard and CDPS architectures can provide valid models of and potential decision support for concurrent design by (1) representing design management metaknowledge, and (2) using it to enhance both horizontal (interdisciplinary) and vertical (project life cycle) integration among product design, manufacturing and operations specialists

Response of Lithographic Mask Structures to Repetitively Pulsed X-rays: Thermal Stress Analysis

This paper examines the effects of thermal loading and time history upon the thermal stresses developed in lithographic mask structures as would be expected under irradiation by intense soft x rays. The objective of this work was to examine the phenomenology of the interaction and to evaluate the limits placed upon mask dosage. The mechanics of mask failure are examined in terms of single pulse and cumulative, or fatigue, effects. A number of prototypical mask structures are investigated, which show that the application of intense pulsed sources to x‐ray lithography does not reduce the potential utility of the techique. However, it is shown that the estimated damage thresholds do impact the operating conditions chosen for optimal production rates and mask lifetime