Je. Baxter et al., A FUNCTIONAL DATA MODEL FOR ASSEMBLIES USED TO VERIFY PRODUCT DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part B, Journal of engineering manufacture, 208(4), 1994, pp. 235-244
During the design of a product periodic reviews must be conducted to v
erify that the product will meet its specification. However, there are
few, if any, computer-based design systems that aid in engineering pr
ocesses other than those involving low-level geometry. This paper desc
ribes two applications that use a functional representation of a produ
ct to aid the designer during the redesign process. The applications a
re aimed at assisting designers in checking that a design meets all th
e requirements in a product's specification. The form of the data used
by the applications is defined by a data model that allows the repres
entation of the function of each feature, component and assembly in th
e product. This functional data model has the strength that it can rep
resent a product as both a structural and a functional hierarchy. The
paper concludes by describing results of experiments using a mechanica
l engineering product as a case study.