Computer Support for Insightful Engineering Design Based on Generic and Rigorous Principles of Symbolic Algebra

Abstract

Engineering designers make many design decisions for selecting optimal options based on insights into underlying relationships among design parameters under consideration. As design proceeds, more and more design parameters are introduced and concretized. The increase of design parameters poses challenges and difficulties for designers to gain deep and rich insights, and to make informed design decisions. Designers therefore need to be adequately supported to explore design alternatives to search for the optimal one. This research aims to provide design support tools for gaining better insights, and to integrate them into a design support system that facilitates designers’ exploration of design solutions. To achieve this aim, new constraint solving methods based on generic and rigorous principles of symbolic algebra have been derived. These methods overcome difficulties of conventional methods, and provide necessary and sufficient information for making insightful design decisions. The advantages of this approach will be shown through a case study.