Biomimetic design uses biological analogies to produce innovative engineering solutions. However, designers face challenges in identifying useful biological analogies and correctly applying the analogies identified to design solutions. To overcome these challenges, this thesis proposes the use of causally related functions in biomimetic design. Causally related functions describe how a desired function is enabled by another function. To support the use of causally related functions, a set of tools was developed. First, the causal relation template and mapping techniques (one-to-one mapping instructions and problem-independent scenario mapping) were devised to assist designers to identify and apply causally related functions from descriptions of biological phenomena. In pen-and-paper experiments with senior undergraduate engineering students, the causal relation template, if used correctly, facilitated the development of design concepts that were analogous to biological phenomena provided as sources of analogy. In addition, the mapping techniques reduced the percentage of participants who made non-analogous associations from biological phenomena to develop design concepts. Another tool developed was the causal relation retrieval method. The method uses syntactic information in natural language sentences to explicitly identify causally related functions. A modified verbal protocol study with graduate engineering students revealed that the retrieval method increased the likelihood of locating biological phenomena relevant to given design problems compared to a single verb-keyword search method. Also, the search matches located with the retrieval method were more likely to facilitate functional association to develop design concepts. These results demonstrate that the knowledge structure of causally related functions can support both the identification of relevant biological phenomena in natural language text and use of analogical reasoning between the biological phenomena and design solutions. The causal relation template and mapping strategies developed contribute to the field of biomimetic design as training methods for designers; and the causal relation retrieval method could serve a technique to bridge the gap between the natural language approach and the modeling approach to biomimetic design.

Aircraft subsystems are key components in modern aircraft, the impact and significance of which have been constantly increasing. Furthermore, the architecture selection of these subsystems has overall system-level effects. Despite the significant effects of architecture selections, existing methods for determining the architecture, especially early in design, are similar to the use of traditional point solutions. Currently, aircraft subsystems are rarely examined during the conceptual design phase, despite the fact that this phase has a significant influence on aircraft cost and performance. For this reason, there is a critical need to examine subsystem architecture trades and investigate the design space during the conceptual design of an aircraft. Traditionally, after the aircraft conceptual design phase, subsystems are developed in a process that begins with the point selection of the architecture, then continues with its development and analysis, and concludes in the detailed development of the subsystems. The choice of the point design of the architecture to be developed can be made using simplified models to explore the design space. This method known as conceptual architecting is explored in this dissertation. This dissertation also focuses on bringing actuation subsystem architecture trades into conceptual design because of the significant cost impact of this design phase and the interdependence of vehicle sizing with the subsystems impact on the aircraft. The extent of these interdependencies is examined and found to be significant. As a result, this coupling must be captured to enable better informed decision making. A methodology to examine the design space of aircraft subsystem architectures during the conceptual design of aircraft, while incorporating this coupling, is presented herein and applied specifically to actuation architectures.

2011 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC). June 5-8, 2011, Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans, LA, USA

This study is concerned with the design and development of a novel wing for UAVs that morphs seamlessly without the use of complex hydraulics, servo motors and controllers. The selected novel design is characterized by a high degree of flight adaptability and improved performance with a limited added weight. These characteristics were attained through the use of shape memory actuators in an antagonistic fashion. Unlike compliant actuators, the antagonistic setup requires the thermal energy to deform the wing but not to maintain its deformed shape. Structural analysis based upon safety factors specified by FAR23 standards and aerodynamic analysis using FLUENT were conducted on the novel design to validate its suitability as a viable wing for UAVs. In addition, thermal conditioning of the shape memory actuators was conducted using a specially designed programmable controller. This thesis does not concern itself with the design of a skin that accommodates the shape changes.

This study is concerned with the design and development of a novel wing for UAVs that morphs seamlessly without the use of complex hydraulics, servo motors and controllers. The selected novel design is characterized by a high degree of flight adaptability and improved performance with a limited added weight. These characteristics were attained through the use of shape memory actuators in an antagonistic fashion. Unlike compliant actuators, the antagonistic setup requires the thermal energy to deform the wing but not to maintain its deformed shape. Structural analysis based upon safety factors specified by FAR23 standards and aerodynamic analysis using FLUENT were conducted on the novel design to validate its suitability as a viable wing for UAVs. In addition, thermal conditioning of the shape memory actuators was conducted using a specially designed programmable controller. This thesis does not concern itself with the design of a skin that accommodates the shape changes.

This thesis aims at developing a better understanding of the design process and the tools required to support it. Specifically it focuses on the early or conceptual stages of the industrial design process and the role of emerging technology based artifacts in supporting this activity. The starting point for this thesis is that industrial design focuses on discovery of new knowledge and that this process of discovery is reflective in nature. Further designers make use of artifacts throughout the design process to support them in this discovery and their reflection. To reveal the role of artifacts in this process, a study of the interaction between designers and their artifacts has been undertaken. To intensify these relationships this thesis has focused on design review activity undertaken in the early stages of industrial design process. Two ethnographic case studies were conducted which allowed for teams of final year industrial design students to be observed during a conceptual design review. The first case study focused on the student designers interacting with traditional artifacts such as sketches, form studies and illustrations as part of the design review session. In the second case study, the student designers made use of low fidelity digital models which were displayed in a highly immersive virtual reality environment to support the design review. Both case studies captured a time slice of a larger design project which the students were undertaking as part of their university studies. The design project focused on the redesign of a consumer product where the students were required to innovate on an existing design based on a number of technology and market constraints. The design review session which formed the basis of the case study was part of a weekly design critique which required the students to bring to the class all of their design development progress. Students were offered an additional review session which was held in a virtual reality facility to supplement their weekly design review session which formed the basis of the second case study. The objective of the review sessions were for the designers to discuss their progress, identify where they were having difficulty, be challenged on design decision and develop a shared understanding of their direction with the class. The case study approach has allowed for an authentic in situ account of how designers make use of artifacts within the early stages of an industrial design process. It has allowed for a comparison between traditional and technology based artifacts and has revealed how they impact on the nature of discovery and reflection. Through a detailed qualitative analysis of the video data which was captured from the case studies, this thesis makes a number of substantial contributions to the current knowledge gaps on the role of artifacts and to our understanding of this phase of design activity. It substantiates conceptual design activity as a reflective process allowing for new discoveries to be made by representing our existing knowledge and understandings in artifacts which can be reflected upon and extended to create new meaning and innovation. From this grounded perspective it has enabled further understandings into the role of the artifact in supporting the design activity. Artifacts are seen as critical in supporting early stage design activity. However it is the nature of the interaction between the designers and their artifacts within the different settings which have been revealed through this research which is of significance. The affordances of the different artifacts have been shown to alter how the students situate their activity and modify their actions within a design review. page 5 of 171 Further designers are required to make use of additional resources such as gestures and rich design language to supplement their design engagement; and they are required to adapt to the environment where the review is being undertaken to ensure that the objective of the design review can be achieved. This thesis makes its primary contribution in outlining the differences between the various types of artifacts and how they can be used to positively support early stage design activity. It is recommended that both traditional and virtual artifacts have a role in supporting activity, but future approaches should consider them as complimentary and consider ways in which they can be merged. The significance of the research is three fold. Firstly, from a pedagogical perspective, within an educational or practiced based setting, it provides a framework to consider the use of emerging technology based artifacts to support early stage design activity. Secondly, from a technology development perspective the grounded observation in authentic experience of design activity, it provides the foundation to inspire and develop new interfaces to support designer interactions with artifacts. Finally, it makes a substantial contribution to the growing body of design research substantiating and revealing new understanding between designers and their artifacts to support early stage design activity.

The scene of a local motorcycle taxi driver hand-knitting a small fishing net at his stand next to a canal will never fade away from my childhood memory. It was the first time I saw the life behind the fishing net. Throughout my textile practice, I’ve reconsidered the fishing net with curiosity and nostalgia. Behind its mesh and diamond shaped structure, I see craftsmanship and the story of its creation. I would like to preserve and encourage these precious values in the net with my Master project Sitting with The Fisherman. The fishing net is reinterpreted to everyday life with a trace of stories within it. The net becomes a tool to gather people together like the fishing net does in the fisherman village. This project will be a pilot idea to others in different contexts, to preserve their precious traditional craftsmanship, to keep it alive by transforming the skill and technique to a new interpretation.

O projeto de produtos e sistemas técnicos complexos requer a compreensão em nível de sistemas e subsistemas para formular soluções eficientes e integradas ao seu contexto. Para auxiliar esta compreensão, o conhecimento de projeto deve ser representado utilizando níveis adequados de abstração de acordo com a fase do projeto. A fase de projeto conceitual requer tipos de representação capazes de atingir um alto nível de abstração para a exploração de conceitos que conduzam a soluções criativas. O paradigma da orientação a objetos, que é fundamentado pela abstração, faz parte da engenharia de software, mas também pode ser aplicado para o projeto de artefatos físicos porque permite a representação dos elementos do mundo real através de uma linguagem simples, acessível e com alto nível de abstração. Ademais, o paradigma da orientação a objetos permite a reutilização do conhecimento de projeto devido à sua capacidade de estruturar a informação em um formato adequado para isto. O presente trabalho propõe um framework para representar o conhecimento de projeto de produto aplicando o paradigma da orientação a objeto. Inicialmente, foram identificados os elementos conceituais da tese e suas relações, para na sequência definir o modelo do framework e o seu método de aplicação O framework utiliza uma linguagem de representação diagramática que pode evoluir desde um mapa mental, com elementos diversificados e pouco ordenados, até uma rede estruturada de classes e relacionamentos em um modelo de classes. Um modelo de classes pode concentrar conhecimento sobre o projeto, servindo como uma estrutura geral que conecta e relaciona diferentes blocos de informação associados aos produtos e sistemas que estão sendo elaborados. A verificação da aplicabilidade do framework foi realizada por especialistas da área de design mediante o desenvolvimento de um projeto de produto em nível conceitual e do preenchimento de questionário de avaliação. / The design of complex technical products requires understanding at the system and subsystem level to formulate efficient and integrated solutions to their context. To support this understanding, the project knowledge can be represented using appropriate levels of abstraction according to the project phase. The conceptual design phase requires types of representation that reach a high level of abstraction for the exploration of concepts that lead to creative solutions. The object-oriented paradigm is based on abstraction and is part of software engineering, but can also be applied to the design of physical artifacts because it allows the representation of realworld elements through simple, accessible and in high-level abstraction language. In addition, the object orientation paradigm supports the reusability of project knowledge due to its capacity to structure the information in patterns. The present work proposes a framework to represent product design knowledge using the objectoriented paradigm First, the conceptual elements of the thesis and their relationships were identified, after; the framework model and their method of application were constructed. The framework uses a diagrammatic representation language in which a mental map, with diversified and unordered elements, can progress into a structured network of classes and relationships in a class model. A class model can focus knowledge about the project, serving as a general structure that connects and relates different blocks of information associated with the products and systems being developed. The verification of the applicability of the framework was carried out by specialists in the design area through the development of a product design at conceptual level and the answering an evaluation questionnaire.

abstract: The main objective of this project was to create a framework for holistic ideation and research about the technical issues involved in creating a holistic approach. Towards that goal, we explored different components of ideation (both logical and intuitive), characterized ideation states, and found new ideation blocks with strategies used to overcome them. One of the major contributions of this research is the method by which easy traversal between different ideation methods with different components were facilitated, to support both creativity and functional quality. Another important part of the framework is the sensing of ideation states (blocks/ unfettered ideation) and investigation of matching ideation strategies most likely to facilitate progress. Some of the ideation methods embedded in the initial holistic test bed are Physical effects catalog, working principles catalog, TRIZ, Bio-TRIZ and Artifacts catalog. Repositories were created for each of those. This framework will also be used as a research tool to collect large amount of data from designers about their choice of ideation strategies used, and their effectiveness. Effective documentation of design ideation paths is also facilitated using this holistic approach. A computer tool facilitating holistic ideation was developed. Case studies were run on different designers to document their ideation states and their choice of ideation strategies to come up with a good solution to solve the same design problem. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Mechanical Engineering 2011

Geometrical parameterisation has an important role in the aircraft design process due to its impact on the computational efficiency and accuracy in evaluating different configurations. In the early design stages, an aircraft geometrical model is normally described parametrically with a small number of design parameters which allows fast computation. However, this provides only a course approximation which is generally limited to conventional configurations, where the models have already been validated. An efficient parameterisation method is therefore required to allow rapid synthesis and analysis of novel configurations. Within this context, the main objectives of this research are: 1) Develop an economical geometrical parameterisation method which captures sufficient detail suitable for aerodynamic analysis and optimisation in early design stage, and2) Close the gap between conceptual and preliminary design stages by bringing more detailed information earlier in the design process. Research efforts were initially focused on the parameterisation of two-dimensional curves by evaluating five widely-cited methods for airfoil against five desirable properties. Several metrics have been proposed to measure these properties, based on airfoil fitting tests. The comparison suggested that the Class-Shape Functions Transformation (CST) method is most suitable and therefore was chosen as the two-dimensional curve generation method. A set of blending functions have been introduced and combined with the two-dimensional curves to generate a three-dimensional surface. These surfaces form wing or body sections which are assembled together through a proposed joining algorithm. An object-oriented structure for aircraft components has also been proposed. This allows modelling of the main aircraft surfaces which contain sufficient level of accuracy while utilising a parsimonious number of intuitive design parameters.