【机械专业英文文献】向理想的机械工程设计支持系统

Toward the ideal mechanical engineering design support system

David G.Ullman

Abstract This paper details the progress toward the development oftheidealmechanical engineering design support system.It attempts to look at the gap between the needs of a mechanicalengineerandwhatis currently available onCAD systems Since the tern：CAD emphasizes that the computer is an aid to the human designer，this paper is designer centric it is based heavi~on the activities performed by designers and the types ofinformation developed by then：Seventeen goals for the ideal mechanical design support system are listed These are directed at the types ofinfor mation developed during the design process and the activ ities used to develop them For each of the seventeen，background information，the current state of the art，and opportunities for future development are itemized

Keywords Mechanical engineering design，CAD，Support system

1

Introduction

This paper summarizes the progress made toward the development of the ideal mechanical engineering design support system For nearly 30 years，computer aided de sign(CAD)systems have been touted by their developers as systems that support engineering designers developing products CAD systems have had a major impact on how design is accomplished in the workplace This being said，there is amazingly little ibrmal research on the effects of these systems on the designers and on the final products‟This paper presents a structure for discussing these effects

In doing so、lt summarizes what is known and what needs co be studied Finally、it discusses how CAD systems have evoh,edto supportincreasingportions ofthe activitiesthat are used to develop products.

The term CAD emphasizes that the computer ls an aid to the human designer，so this paper is designer centric it is based heavily on the activities pertbrmed by designers and the types ofintbrmation developed by them in many ways，this is an update of two earlier papers，‘‘The importance of drawing in the mechanical design process”[29 J and“issues critical to the development of design history，design ratio nale and design intent systems”【311 The latter paper developed 13 outstanding issues that needed to be resolvedto realize the capture and query ofengineering design intormation as a potential lor lmprovmg the design process

and the reuse ofdesign Intormation.

The tbundation for the first paper was the study of the marks made on paper by nve mechanical design engineers of varying backgrounds and experience They were each given the initial specifications tbr one of two t~irly simple，yet realistic，mechanical design problems taken from professional practice The engineers were requested to think aloud as they soh,ed the problems Their verbal reports、drawings，and gestures were video and audio taped for aperiod of6 10 h The taped data were then transcribed to ob tain a……protocol”of the design session Each designer made numerous drawings during his or her solution of the problem A11 0fthesewere on paper CAD systemswere not usedinthe studgbecausenone ofthedesigners usedCADln their daily practice，and its use would have added another variable to an already complex experiment.

From the more than 40 h ofdata taken，15 sections were selected that represented typical conceptual，layout，detail and selection design for each subject The 15 sections of protocol data consisted of 174 rain of data The data were analyzed to explore the observations that drawings are usedto：