A graph-theoretic approach to conceptual design with functional perspectives

This paper explores the concepts of concurrency in design and develops an a pproach that involves reliability and other functional perspectives at the conceptual design stage. The paper uses graph theory to represent a product and define the relationships between its components. It employs the graph- theory concepts of the "tree" and the "forest" to represent a functional de sign artefact and idle condition, respectively. The approach presented in the paper provides a more refined visualisation o f the energy Row and is applicable to numerous designs including sliding Se ars, clutches, overrunning clutches and flywheels, amongst others. It can b e used to concurrently modify the design taking into consideration various constraints, e.g. expected mechanical failures and cost considerations. A c ase study is presented to illustrate the benefits of the approach discussed in the paper. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.