Conceptual Design

Maximising reader insights into the theory, models, methods and fundamental reasoning of design, this book addresses design activities in industrial settings, as well as the actors involved. This approach offers readers a new understanding of design activities and related functions, properties and dispositions. Presenting a ‘design mindset’ that seeks to empower students, researchers, and practitioners alike, it features a strong focus on how designers create new concepts to be developed into products, and how they generate new business and satisfy human needs. Employing a multi-faceted perspective, the book supplies the reader with a comprehensive worldview of design in the form of a proposed model that will empower their activities as student, researcher or practitioner. We draw the reader into the core role of design conceptualisation for society, for the development of industry, for users and buyers of products, and for citizens in relation to public systems. The book also features original contributions related to exploration, conceptualisation and product synthesis. Exploring both the power and limitations of formal design process models, methods, and tools viewed in the light of human ingenuity and cognition, the book develops a unique design mindset that adds human understanding to the list of methods and tools essential to design. This insight is distilled into useful mindset heuristics included throughout the book.

Product Concept Design has been written by a collection of researchers and practising designers from leading companies such as Nokia and Volvo. The book explains the process of conceptual design of new manufactured products and shows how the principles involved are employed in real examples of consumer products from some of the world’s most important corporations detailed by the designers themselves. The book will be bought by designers and managers in industry, as well as lecturers in design and design engineering and their students.

Although first published nearly thirty years ago, this book remains up-to-date, intellectually stimulating and realistic. Unlike most texts in the field, it relates design closely to the science and mathematics that are students' chief concern, and shows their relevance. It shows how to make simple but illuminating calculations, and how to achieve the insight and the invention that often result from them. Covering design principles in depth, this is, and remains, an original book: although some of the ideas which were novel in 1971 are now widely accepted, others remain new.

This text explains the concepts behind process design. It uses a case study approach, guiding readers through realistic design problems, and referring back to these cases at the end of each chapter. Throughout, the author uses shortcut techniques that allow engineers to obtain the whole focus for a design in a very short period (generally less than two days).

Although the overall appearance of modern airliners has not changed a lot since the introduction of jetliners in the 1950s, their safety, efficiency and environmental friendliness have improved considerably. Main contributors to this have been gas turbine engine technology, advanced materials, computational aerodynamics, advanced structural analysis and on-board systems. Since aircraft design became a highly multidisciplinary activity, the development of multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) has become a popular new discipline. Despite this, the application of MDO during the conceptual design phase is not yet widespread. Advanced Aircraft Design: Conceptual Design, Analysis and Optimization of Subsonic Civil Airplanes presents a quasi-analytical optimization approach based on a concise set of sizing equations. Objectives are aerodynamic efficiency, mission fuel, empty weight and maximum takeoff weight. Independent design variables studied include design cruise altitude, wing area and span and thrust or power loading. Principal features of integrated concepts such as the blended wing and body and highly non-planar wings are also covered. The quasi-analytical approach enables designers to compare the results of high-fidelity MDO optimization with lower-fidelity methods which need far less computational effort. Another advantage to this approach is that it can provide answers to “what if” questions rapidly and with little computational cost. Key features: Presents a new fundamental vision on conceptual airplane design optimization Provides an overview of advanced technologies for propulsion and reducing aerodynamic drag Offers insight into the derivation of design sensitivity information Emphasizes design based on first principles Considers pros and cons of innovative configurations Reconsiders optimum cruise performance at transonic Mach numbers Advanced Aircraft Design: Conceptual Design, Analysis and Optimization of Subsonic Civil Airplanes advances understanding of the initial optimization of civil airplanes and is a must-have reference for aerospace engineering students, applied researchers, aircraft design engineers and analysts.

Conceptual Design for Interactive Systems: Designing for Performance and User Experience provides readers with a comprehensive guide to the steps necessary to take the leap from research and requirements to product design. The text presents a proven strategy for transforming research into a conceptual model, discussing the iterative process that allows users to build the essential foundation for a successful interactive system, while also taking the users’ mental model into consideration. Readers will gain a better understanding of the framework they need to perceive, understand, and experience their tasks and processes in the context of their products. The text is ideal for those seeking a proven, innovative strategy for meeting goals through intuitive and effective thinking. Provides a practical, guiding approach that can be immediately applied to everyday practice and study Complete analysis and explanation of conceptual modeling and its value Discusses the implications of effective and poor conceptual models Presents a step-by-step process, allowing users to build the essential foundation for a successful interactive system

Human activities in the form of production and consumption have increased to an all-time high. In many cases, this increase has resulted in environmental problems such as waste and pollution that, in turn, affect our health and way of living. Societies have proposed different measures to address such environmental problems. These range from different waste treatment technologies to alternative business models, policy measures, and lifecycle thinking in the design of products, to mention but a few. In this research, the focus is on supporting early design activities of what is often called the conceptual design stage with the objective to provide effective and resource-efficient offerings. The early design activities considered here are planning, analysis, and evaluation. Design researchers have largely supported these three activities with a variety of methods and tools. However, previous research has shown that design support coming from academia has had a low uptake in industry. In this regard, the aim of this research is to propose not only useful but also usable support for design practitioners during the conceptual design stage. This research is carried out in the manufacturing sector in Sweden, where selected companies expressed an interest in collaborating with academia to address more thoroughly effective and resource-efficient offerings. To better match company needs and research from academia, this research took a pragmatic and cross-disciplinary approach. This research approach, along with literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, workshops, and questionnaires, shows different ways in which support can be made more useful and usable. The main gap addressed here is that the knowledge and the related skills of the user of the support have not been sufficiently explored. The results include requirements of the user of the support, proposed methods and tools derived from the requirements identified, and, most importantly, the knowledge and skills needed by the user of the support. The main message of this research is that support could be expanded from methods and tools to include knowledge and skills needed by design practitioners, the users of support. The flow of support from academia to industry could also be reinforced in a two-way flow through a pragmatic and cross-disciplinary approach to first and foremost address design practitioners’ needs. Mänskliga aktiviteter i form av produktion och konsumtion har aldrig varit högre. Denna ökning över tid har i många fall lett till miljöproblem som avfall och föroreningar, vilka i sin tur påverkar vår hälsa och levnadssätt. För att möta dessa miljöproblem har olika åtgärder föreslagits, som tekniker för avfallshantering, alternativa affärsmodeller, policy och livscykeldesign, för att nämna några. Fokus i forskningen som presenteras i denna avhandling är på tidiga designaktiviteter, vilka ofta kallas det konceptuella designstadiet och som syftar till att ta fram resurseffektiva erbjudanden. Detta steg behandlas här genom att närmare undersöka designaktiviteterna planering, analys och utvärdering. Designforskare har till stor del stöttat dessa tre aktiviteter med en mängd olika metoder och verktyg. Emellertid visar tidigare forskning att designstöd från akademin har ett lågt upptag i industrin. Syftet med denna forskning är därför att föreslå ett användbart stöd som också är användarvänlig för utövare under det konceptuella designstadiet. För att uppnå detta genomförs forskningen inom tillverkningssektorn i Sverige där deltagande företag uttryckt ett intresse av att samarbeta med akademin avseende resurseffektiva erbjudanden. För att bättre matcha företagens behov med forskning från akademin antas en pragmatisk och tvärvetenskaplig strategi. Denna strategi, tillsammans med litteraturöversikter, semistrukturerade intervjuer, workshops och enkäter visar hur stödet i det konceptuella designstadiet kan bli mer användbart och användarvänlig. Den huvudsakliga forskningsluckan som tas upp här är att kunskap och relaterade färdigheter hos användaren av stödet inte har undersökts tillräckligt. Resultatet ger en beskrivning av kraven på de stöd som användaren behöver, föreslag på metoder och verktyg som baseras på de identifierade kraven och, viktigast av allt, den kunskap och de färdigheter som användaren av stödet behöver ha. Huvudbudskapet är att stöd kan utvidgas från att omfatta metoder och verktyg till att även inkludera behovet av kunskap och färdigheter hos designutövare, det vill säga användarna av supporten. Stödet från den akademiska världen till industrin kan också förstärkas genom att bli ett tvåvägsflöde som med en pragmatisk och tvärvetenskaplig strategi först och främst adresserar användarens behov.

Conceptual Design for African Engineers Samuel Olu Atolagbe & Dr. Ademola Dare Conceptual Design for African Engineers is made for engineers in product development in order to provide intellectual guidance in developing engineering products. It is especially designed to assist graduate engineers working as entrepreneurs in product development. Various steps such as product need identification, product specification, product conceptual design, selection of product ideas, and prototype testing are discussed. These are complemented by discussions on standardisation of products and ergonomics. This work discusses these topics so a graduate engineer can be informed on what to do to develop an engineering product for the market, especially in a developing country, and can be used by either undergraduates or graduates. The goal for this guide is to address the situation in which graduate engineers are not able to design simple machines. An engineer going through this educational book thoughtfully will be able to create an engineering product that can be made and sold.